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AROUND THE WORLD 
THROUGH JAPAN 



•Tj^Tg^^^' 



Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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The Daibutsu of Kamakura, Japan. 
Photographed hy Farsari, Yokohama. 



AROUND THE WORLD 
THROUGH JAPAN 



V 



BY 

WALTER DEL MAR 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1902 

All rights reser'ved 



3 '^^ 



OONa«E3S, 

Ci-ASie <Vxxp No, 
corv 8, 



COPYKIGHT, 1902, 

By WALTER DEL MAR. 



Set up and electrotyped November, 190a. 



J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

These notes and impressions are pnblislied in the hope 
that they will recall pleasant days to those who have been 
around the world and through Japan, that they will prepare 
those who are about to make a similar tour for some of its 
inevitable disappointments as well as enjoyments, and that 
they will prove not altogether uninteresting to those who 
neither have been nor intend to be globe-trotters. 

WALTER DEL MAR. 

October, 1902. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

LONDON TO COLOMBO ■ 1 

Life on Board Ship. Gibraltar. Marseilles. Etna. Pas- 
times and Pools. Port Said. Suez Canal. The Red Sea. The 
Southern Cross. Aden. The Arabian Sea. 

CHAPTEE II 

CEYLON ,12 

Colombo Harbour. The Colpetty Road and Mount Lavinia. 
The Fort. The Natives. Galle Face Hotel. "The Scoun- 
drel." Kelaniya. The Coast Railway. Galle. Peradeniya 
Gardens and Kandy. Tea. 

CHAPTER III 

CEYLON 23 

Matale and the Coach to Anuradhapura. Bicycling in Cey- 
lon. The Northern Road. The Ruined Cities. The Bo-tree. 
The Dagabas and Other Monuments. The Fever Season. 
The Brazen Palace. The Rock Temple. One of the World's 
Wonders. 

CHAPTER IV 

CEYLON 31 

Dambulla. The Railway to Bandarawella. The Tea- 
planters. Sport. Go-as-you-please Spelling. Nuwara Eliya. 
The Ascent of Pedro. Hakgalla Gardens. From Ceylon to 
Java. Penang. Water-spouts. Singapore. A Curious Illu- 
sion. Krakatoa. 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 



CHAPTEE V 

PAGE 

JAVA 43 

Tandjong Priok and Batavia. The Natives. Dutch Cus- 
toms. The Rijst-tafel. Buitenzorg. Fruits. Mosquitoes. 



CHAPTER VI 

JAVA 49 

Sindanglaija. The Javanese and their Country. How the 
Dutch govern Java. Chinese Contractors. Social Equality of 
Half-castes. Tobacco. Regulation of Coolies. Java Tea. 
Dutch Jealoiisy. "India." By Road and Rail to Garoet. 
Lake Bagendit. Crater of Papandajan. Ferns and Orchids. 
Back to Batavia. 



CHAPTER VII 

SINGAPORE 60 

Sir Thomas Raffles. The Chinese Paradise. The Straits 
Settlements. The Malay Language. First Impressions. Club 
Temperance. Fruit. Johor. Sampans. Tin Hill. Fast Coal- 
ing. Money. Justice. Servants. Malay Street. " The Lib- 
erator of the Philippines." The Effect of Climate on Morals. 
The Charm of the East. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 72 

Chinese Coolies. A Riot. Piracy. Chinese Games. Domi- 
noes. Poh-tchi. Fan-tan. The Banker must win. A Death 
at Sea. How John Chinaman smokes. Cholera-belts. 



CHAPTER IX 

HONG KONG 80 

The Island of Hong Kong. China-town. Trade. Money. 
" Chairs." The Club. Victoria and the Peak. The Plague. 
" The Chinese must go." The Wily " Boy." " American Girls." 



CONTENTS ix 



CHAPTER X 

PAGE 

CANTON 86 

Pirates and Thieves. The Canton River. Shameen. Can- 
ton. Street Scenes. Temples. Execution Ground. The 
Water-clock. Chinese Coins. The Examination Hall. The 
Literati. The City Walls. Streets and Eoads. Feng-shui. 
A Prison. Shops. The Flower Boats. 

CHAPTER XI 

MACAO 101 

" The Monte Carlo of the Far East." Opium. Gamblers 
and Courtesans. Sunday in Macao. The Poet Camoens. 
Japanese and Chinese Sailors. The Philippines. Admiral 
Dewey and Captain Mahan. Macao to Shanghai. 

CHAPTER XII 
SHANGHAI 109 

" The Model Settlement." The Bund. Trade and Finances 
of China. British and Japanese Firms. Merchants and Com- 
pradores. A Wheelbarrow Ride. Chinese Soldiers. Chinese 
Bravery. A Fire at Sea. Money. Chinese Characteristics. 
The Manchus. The Mandarins. The Merchants. The Mis- 
sionaries. British and Japanese Influence in China. The 
Empress. 

CHAPTER XIII 
JAPAN 127 

First Impressions. Nagasaki Harbour. Mogi. The Bronze 
Horse Temple. The Inland Sea. Kobe. Our Guide. " English 
as she is Japped." Murray's Handbook. The Language. 
Money. Yokohama. Dwarf Trees. Japanese Railways. 

CHAPTER XIV 

TOKYO AND KYOTO o 141 

Cherry-blossoms. Letters of Introduction. Jinrikishas. 
The Imperial Garden Party. The Emperor and Empress. 
" The Soul of Japan." The Russian Minister. Kyoto. The 
Cherry-blossom Dance. The Geisha. The Palaces. 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

RELIGION IN JAPAN. ........ 153 

A Promising Field. No Love lost. Japanese Ingratitude. 
Kyoto Temples. Shintoism. Buddhism. Pilgrimages. Curi- 
ous Resemblances. The Shin-shu Buddhists. Holidays. 
Manji and Tomoye. A Fire. Shops. Cloisonne- The Rapids 
of the Katsura-gawa. Tea. 

CHAPTER XVI 

WESTERN JAPAN 167 

Nara. Horyuji. The Oldest Temple in Japan. The Tomb 
of the First Mikado. Hasedera. Tonomine. Rats and Cats. 
Famous Cherry-trees. Koya-san, the Japanese Grande Char- 
treuse. Sake. A Temple Dinner. A Crowded Inn. Waka- 
yama. The Noises of the Night. Sakai. Osaka. A Funeral. 
Osaka Castle. Kobe and Hyogo. 

CHAPTER XVII 

THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA . 183 

Tokushima. A Clever Landlady. A Japanese Inn. Foot- 
wear. Architecture. Tsunomine. A Temple Festival. A 
Cheap Entertainment. The Naruto Channel. Kompira. 
A Wedding. Onomichi. Miyajima. Hiroshima. Dogo. A 
Public Bath. Japanese Women. Matsuyama. Horses. 

CHAPTER XVIII 

EAST KYUSHU .......... 200 

The Japanese Army. The Hot Baths of Beppu. A Basha. 
Horses. Oita. Nobeoka. The Nunobiki Cascades. The 
Coast Road. Miyazaki. Jujutsu, the Art of Self-defence. 

CHAPTER XIX 

SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 211 

Kagoshima. Old Satsuma and New. Faience. The Road 
to the North. The Rapids of the Kuma-gawa. Yatsushiro- 



CONTENTS xi 



PAGE 



ware. Arita Porcelain. Old Swords. The Japanese Bruce. 
A Silk-factory. Coal. The Korean Question. The Anglo- 
Japanese Alliance. 

CHAPTEE XX 

THE MAIN ISLAND FROM TOKUYAMA TO NAGOYA . 224 

Kobe. Across Country. " The Ladder of Heaven." A 
Rough Passage. Lake Biwa. A Curious Tree. Beggars. 
Awata. The Temples of Ise. The Ise Ondo. The Kagura. 
Fine Scenery. A Portland Cement Factory. 



CHAPTEE XXI 

NAGOYA AND HAKONE 238 

Cloisonne and Porcelain. The Castle. The Hongwanji 
Temples. Maiko and Geisha. The Game of " Go." The 
"Fox" Game. Chon Kina. Shidzuoka. The Waterfalls of 
Kami-ide. Mount Fuji. The Maiden's Pass. Miyanoshita. 
Hakone. Atami. Camphor. A Fishing-fleet steered from 
the Shore. Over the Mountains. 



CHAPTEE XXII 

NORTHERN JAPAN 250 

By Sea to Hakodate. The Japanese Navy. Hakodate. The 
Island of Hokkaido. The Hairy Ainos. " Good Wine needs 
no Bush." Aomori. The Northern Railway. Matsushima. 
Bandai-san. The Eruption of 1888. Flowers and Birds. 
From Inawashiro to Nikko. 



CHAPTEE XXIII 

NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA ..... 261 

Nikko. Art Treasures. The Gate of the Two Kings. The 
Main Temple. The Mausolea. Temples and Cascades. The 
Road to Chuzenji and Yumoto. The Valley of the Watarase- 
gawa. An Exhilarating Walk. Silkworms and Silk. Ikao. 
The Railway to Karuizawa. The Volcano of Asama. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEE XXIV 

_ PAGB 

YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 274 

The Great Buddha of Kamakura. Enoshima. To Kama- 
kura by Jinrikisha. Earthquakes. An Excursion to Kano- 
zan. The Caves of Taya. Holidays and Fireworks. Narita. 
Fine Carvings. Tokyo. Ueno Park. Shiba. Flowers and 
Gardens. 



CHAPTEE XXV 

JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 288 

A Wrestling Match. Heavy-weights. Theatres. Danjuro. 
The Forty-seven Eonin. The Maple Leaf Club. A Club 
Dinner. Japanese Dancing. Music. 



CHAPTEE XXVI 

THE JAPANESE 299 

Physical Characteristics. Food. Children. Blindness. 
Comparisons. The Classes and the Masses. The Franchise. 
Politics and Parties. " Japan for the Japanese." Commercial 
Dishonesty. " Evasions of Veracity." 



CHAPTEE XXVII 

JAPANESE WOMEN 310 

" The Social Evil." Modern Japan and Ancient Greece. 
The Laws evaded. Women as Chattels. Divorces. Family 
Life. The Only Hope. Ideals. Marriages and Births. Sui- 
cides. Crime. Police. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII 

JAPANESE TRAITS . .321 

Patriotism. Pride of Race. National Vanity. Cleanliness. 
Native and European Dress. Dirty Houses. Politeness. The 
Japanese Smile. The Peasantry. 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER XXIX 

PAGE 

JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 332 

Japan's Debt to China. How the Debt will be repaid. 
China's Awakening. Japanese Competition. Rise in Prices 
and in Wages. Chinese Labour preferred. " The Frenchmen 
of the East." Art. Decline of Taste. Carving. Lacquer. 
Literature. 

CHAPTER XXX 

TRADE AND FINANCE 346 

The Circulating Medium. Banks. Industrial Companies. 
The Crisis of 1901. Foreign Capital required. Foreign Trade. 
Exports and Imports. The International Balance Sheet. The 
Budget. Taxes. Expenditures. 

CHAPTER XXXI 

IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 355 

Scenery. A Sterile Country. Comparisons. Characteristic 
Scenery. "The Three Views." Other Scenes. Roads. Cli- 
mate. The Time to visit Japan. " The Smell of the East." 
Polluted Streams. Farming. Insects. Disappointed Globe- 
trotters. 

CHAPTER XXXII 

HAWAn AND THE PACIFIC . . . . . . .368 

Yokohama to Honolulu. Honolulu. Sea-bathing. The 
Punch Bowl. Music and Flowers. The Pali. Poi. Sugar. 
Missionaries. Mosquitoes. Panama Hats. Mauna Loa in 
Eruption. " The Palace of the Sun." Maui. Hawaii. Hilo. 
The Road to the Volcano House. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. 
Fruit. Captain Cook. Kauai. The Hula-Hula. Annexation. 
A Luau. The Voyage to San Francisco. English Sociability. 

CHAPTER XXXIII 

CALIFORNIA 392 

The Golden Gate. San Francisco. Old Landmarks. The 
Social Side. "A Bottle of Wine." The Yosemite. Glacier 



CONTENTS 



Point. The Big Trees. The Eoad Down. California Di- 
vorces. Stud Poker. Los Angeles. "Bunkoed." "Man 
Overboard." The Return of the Volunteers. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

ACROSS THE AMERICAN CONTINENT . . . .409 
Lake Tahoe. The Central Pacific. The Rio Grande West- 
ern. Colorado Springs. Manitou. The C. B. & Q. Chicago. 
" The Pennsylvania Limited." New York. New York to 
London. 

CHAPTEE XXXV 

SUGGESTIONS TO TOURISTS 420 

When to start. Around the World in Nine Months. What 
it costs. Luggage. Clothing. Cigars and Tobacco. Sun- 
dries. For Japan. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Daibutsu of Kamakura, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, 

Yokohama Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Beach at Mount Lavinia, Ceylon. Photographed by Plate, Colombo 12 
Ilest House and Coach, Anuradhapura, Ceylon 



} 



Stone Canopy, Anuradhapura, Ceylon 

Thiiparama Dagaba, Anuradhapura, Ceylon. Photographed by 

Plate, Colombo 30 

Rock Temple Entrance, Dambool, Ceylon. Photographed by Plate, 

Colombo .32 

Hakgalla Rock, Ceylon. Photographed by Plate, Colombo . . 36 

View from Hotel Belle Vue, Buitenzorg, Java .... 44 

Buitenzorg Gardens, Java 46 

Lake Bagendit, Java 54 

Crater of Papandajan, Java 56 

The Durian ......-..»,. 64 

Hong Kong Harbour 80 

Chinese Temple, Hong Kong 84 

Shameen Creek, Canton 86 

Catholic Cathedral from River, Canton 88 

Execution Ground, Canton 90 

Examination Hall, Canton . 92 

A Tower in the Walls of Canton, " The Five-storey Pagoda " . 94 

Street in Canton 96 

Flower Boats and Pawnshop, Canton 98 

Macao with the Guia Lighthouse 100 

Jesuit Church of San Paulo, Macao ..«.,.. 102 

Chinese Woman's Foot unbandaged 116 

XV 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Approach to Asakusa Temple, Tokyo. Photographed by Farsari, / 

Yokohama 138 

An Old Kyoto Pine-tree, " The Junk." Photographed by Farsari, 

Yokohama 156 

Miyajima, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, Yokohama . . 194 

Ama-no-Hashidate, Japan 226 

The Temples of Ise, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, Yokohama 232 ^ 
Dogashima Cascade, Miyanoshita, Japan. Photographed by Far- 
sari, Yokohama 244 

Fuji's Eeflection in Lake Hakone, Japan. Photographed by Far- 
sari, Yokohama . . . 246 

Temple at Matsushima, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, Yoko- / 

hama 256 

The Images on the Daiya-gawa, Nikko, Japan. Photographed by 

Farsari, Yokohama 260 

leyasu's Tomb, Nikko, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, Yokohama 262 
The Zigzag Rocks near Haruna Temple, Ikao, Japan . . , 272 
Back of Kamakura Daibutsu, Japan. Photographed by Farsari, 

Yokohama 274" 

Cherry-blossoms in Ueno Park, Tokyo. Photographed by Farsari, 

Yokohama 286 " 

Graves of Forty-seven Ronin, Tokyo. Photographed by Farsari, 

Yokohama 294 

Temple Sports, Japan "^ 

o58 



.1 



Islands at Matsushima, Japan 

Harvesting in Japan. Photographed by Farsari, Yokohama . . 364 

Honolulu from the Punch Bowl. Photographed by Davey, 

Honolulu 368 

The Judiciary Building, Honolulu. Photographed by Davey, 

Honolulu 370 ' 

Nuuanu Pali, Honolulu. Photographed by Davey, Honolulu . . 374 
Hula Girls, Hawaii. Photographed by Davey, Honolulu . . 388 
Ladies dressed for Mountaineering in California. Photographed 

by Fiske, Yosemite 392 

Yosemite Valley. The Three Brothers (4000 Feet) . Photographed 

by Fiske, Yosemite 396 



ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 

FACING PAGE 

Yosemite Valley. The Vernal Falls (350 Feet). Photographed 

by Fiske, Yosemite 398 

Yosemite Valley. The Cathedral Spires (2200 Feet). Photo- 
graphed by Fiske, Yosemite 400 

Yosemite VaUey. Half Dome (5000 Feet) and Glacier Point (3200 

Feet). Photographed by Fiske, Yosemite .... 402 

Manitou Springs, Colorado. Photographed by Hiestand, Manitou . 412 

The Cog-wheel Railway up Pike's Peak, Colorado. Photographed 

by Hiestand, Manitou 414 



ABOUND THE WORLD THROUGH JAPAN 



CHAPTER I 

LONDON TO COLOMBO 

Life on Board Ship. Gibraltar. Marseilles. Etna. Pastimes and 
Pools. Port Said. Suez Canal. The Eed Sea. The Southern Cross. 
Aden. The Arabian Sea. 

In planning a tour around tlie world it is essential, on 
the grounds of both, comfort and pleasure, to consider the 
climatic conditions of the countries you intend to visit. If 
you desire to devote to India and Japan three or four months 
each during the same twelvemonth, it will be necessary to 
leave London in October in order to take advantage of the 
cooler winter months in India, and to reach Japan by the 1st 
of April, in time for the cherry-blossom season. The three 
months ending with June are the most favourable for Japan, 
although there is a shorter and perhaps more pleasant period 
when the chrysanthemums bloom in November. If India is 
left out of the tour and Java included in it, you should start 
not later than the 1st of January from London, and if you 
also intend to visit Peking you should sail early in December. 

We delayed our departure until the 12th of January, and 
had in consequence to curtail our stay in Java and forego an 
excursion to Peking. We sent to the ship, a couple of days 
in advance, our steamer-chairs and our heavy luggage, most 
of the latter marked " Wanted on voyage," so that it would 
be placed in the baggage-room where we could get at it daily 
if necessary, and with small hand luggage took train at Liver- 
pool Street for Tilbury on the day of sailing. Even if one 
joins the ship at Marseilles, it is advisable to put all heavy 



2 LONDON TO COLOMBO 

luggage on board at London and travel througli France with 
hand luggage only, as registered luggage is sometimes de- 
layed in the hands of the French railway companies, and a 
voyage to the East without one's luggage is not to be recom- 
mended on a pleasure trip. 

In a gale of wind and a downpour of rain we were taken 
out in a small, overcrowded tender to the P. & O. steam- 
ship Oceana^ and had just time to say good-by to the kind 
friends who had come down to see us off before the going- 
ashore bell rang. After securing our places for meals, and 
arranging our time for the morning bath with the topas, or 
bath steward, we posted ourselves in sheltered positions on 
deck to watch the steamer get under way, and from half-past 
three to dinner time waited in vain. The storm was too violent 
to allow of our getting safely away, and we remained in the 
river till nearly midnight, watching the lights of Gravesend 
and wishing ourselves ashore ; and it was only by leaving an 
anchor in the river that we finally did begin our voyage. 
We dropped the pilot at noon next day off the "Nab" light- 
ship and then began to take note of our surroundings and 
our fellow-passengers. 

To those who are going to the East for the first time there 
is on board ship a foretaste of novelty in the Lascar crew, the 
Seedeboy stokers, the use of Indian names, and the following 
out of customs originating in tropical countries. At least 
two Lascars are required to do the work of one European 
sailor, and there is not much gain on the score of economy in 
employing a crew of Lascars ; but in the tropics they remain 
efficient. And as they do not use alcoholic drinks, being nearly 
all Mohammedans, they are more reliable, and give less trouble 
when the ship is in port. A crew is more easily got to- 
gether and does not desert or mutiny. The Lascars are 
under the immediate orders of a serang (boatswain) and 
tindal (boatswain's mate or coxswain). 

The morning begins with chota liadjiree (tea and toast) in 
your cabin at 7.30 ; then you wait until the topas informs you 
that your tub is ready. Breakfast is at 9, and by the time 
you have had a constitutional and settled down to a book, 



LONDON TO COLOMBO 3 

you find it is 1 o'clock and tiffin is ready. Tea follows at 4, 
and at 7.30 the bell rings to dress for 8 o'clock dinner. 
When you require a drink at dinner, you discover that you 
do not give an order, but ask for and sign a chit, — the uni- 
versal Eastern synonym for an order, cheque, receipt, credit, 
or reference, and the means by which most business and 
social engagements in the East are regulated. 

The bad weather in which we started had its redeeming 
feature in bringing together in the smoking-saloon at the 
beginning of the voyage a small party of hardened travellers 
who were good enough sailors to stand the pitching and 
tossing we were subjected to and who rapidly became 
acquainted. As the weather improved, our party was in- 
creased by those who had had " important engagements," or 
letters to write, or unpacking, or other duties keeping them 
to their cabins, and finally our number was completed by a 
couple of weak passengers who confessed to having been 
seasick. The cheery yachtsman, who afterward acted as 
auctioneer in selling the numbers in the pool on the ship's 
run, declared that he had never known the sensation of sea- 
sickness, but defied any man to truthfully declare that on a 
steamer he preferred a rough sea to a smooth one. It was 
agreed that the company might make a good thing out of 
small lockers in the smoking-room of the ships making long 
voyages, as most passengers would be glad to pay a small 
rental for a convenient place to keep book, pipe, and tobacco, 
and so avoid being obliged to go below for them. 

By the time the men became well acquainted with each 
other the ladies began to appear, and projects to gain their 
good graces and to amuse them were brought forward. 
Whist had been started in the smoking-room the first even- 
ing, piquet soon followed, and as the weather got warmer 
the card players found their way on deck. A curious score 
was made in a game of piquet with one of the ladies. Her 
total at the end of the fourth hand was 38 and her opponent 
stood at 96, having made 24 each hand. In the fifth hand 
she made a pique and capot, scoring 121 to 0, and in the sixth 
hand, being the minor, she made a repique, taking all but the 



4 LONDON TO COLOMBO 

last trick, counting 111 to 3, totalling 270, and rubiconing her 
opponent at 99, with, a win of 469 points. 

Before we had been three days out, complaints began to be 
made of patent-leather boots being damaged by cockroaches 
and rats, the latter nibbling the kid tops and the former eat- 
ing off the polished surface, — misfortunes we had provided 
against by placing them in our soiled-linen bags, and so 
keeping ours out of the reach of such vermin. On the 
fourth day out, after breakfasting on country captain (grilled 
chicken with fried onions), and Scotch parkins (oatmeal bis- 
cuits flavoured with ginger), we sighted the Castle of Cintra 
and the mouth of the Tagus, and came into bright sunshine 
and smooth water. The next morning we anchored in 
Gibraltar Bay. Here we remained only an hour and a half, 
— barely time to go ashore in a small boat, and as far as the 
market-place, where we bought some photographs and tobacco. 
The first view of Gibraltar, as of most famous places, is dis- 
appointing and does not convey the idea of a great fortress. 
The only gun to be seen from the bay is a small brass can- 
non at the Signal Station, and it is therefore difficult to real- 
ise the strength of the fortifications or the number and size 
of the guns in position. In order to provide material for the 
new Harbour Works the Rock has been pierced by a tunnel 
from west to east. Gibraltar has a population of about 
20,000 civilians and a garrison of about 7,000 men. 

In the afternoon we saw the snow-clad Sierra Nevadas of 
Granada, the following day the Sierra de Almenar from off 
Barcelona, and the next morning made fast to the Quai at 
Marseilles, where the competition of the French lines has 
compelled the P. & O. steamers to call. We were all glad 
of a day ashore and began with a drive by the Corniche Road, 
with its charming views of harbour and islands, to the 
Chateau Borely and back by the Prado, — a splendid boule- 
vard two miles long, — then up by the lift to Notre Dame de 
la Garde for the sake of the view, and to see the curious votive 
offerings of tablets, pictures, and models left by grateful pil- 
grims and sailors. After a luncheon which included the 
celebrated bouillabaisse, we visited the Chateau d'Eau at the 



LONDON TO COLOMBO 5 

Palais de Longcliamps (a graceful piece of architecture due 
to Esperaudieu), and afterward the Cathedral. Before re- 
joining the ship we had a stroll along the Quai and remarked 
the long, narrow drays, and the horses with large leather 
horns above the collars, as many as fourteen harnessed tan- 
dem to a single cart. 

The morning after leaving Marseilles we were in the 
Straits of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, and the 
following morning passed the Lipari or JEolian Islands. At 
7.30 we were off the constantly smoking cone of Stromboli, 
and three hours later we were in the narrow passage of the 
Straits of Messina opposite the octagonal tower of Rocca 
Guelfonia, six hundred miles from Marseilles. Etna re- 
mained in sight all day, its lower slopes covered with vine- 
yards and orchards, while the upper half stood out desert 
and bare. We looked in vain for smoke from the summit 
and for the observatory on the side of the central crater, and 
had to content ourselves with the statement that the last 
important eruption was in 1886, and that the loftiest peak 
attains an elevation of 10,874 feet. 

It was only after leaving Marseilles that the question of 
amusements was taken seriously in hand, and the first selling 
pool on the ship's run was made up. The original scheme 
was to sell one ticket to each passenger subscribing, say, a 
shilling, to ask the captain's advice as to the probable run, to 
take consecutive numbers with the probable run in the mid- 
dle, and to draw the passengers' names from one hat and the 
numbers from another. Then the numbers were sold at 
auction, half the selling price going to the owner and half to 
the pool. The holder of the ticket with the number corre- 
sponding to the number of knots posted as the ship's run to 
noon wins the pool, less five per cent given to the ship's 
charities. The holder of the lowest number wins on any run 
below it, and the holder of the highest number on any run 
above. Another plan was to sell as many numbered tickets 
as each passenger wished to buy. Draw the numbered tickets 
from one hat and in the other place an equal number of slips, 
only a portion of which, say fifty, are numbered consecutively, 



6 LONDON TO COLOMBO 

one marked " under," another " over," and the rest blanks. 
The tickets drawing the consecutive numbers are auctioned, 
then the "under" and "over" tickets, and after half the 
selling price is added and five per cent of the total deducted 
for charity, the pool is divided, half to the holder of the win- 
ning number, quarter to the tenth number above the win- 
ning one, and quarter to the tenth number below. The 
tickets " under " and " over " have double chances not only 
of taking half of the pool if the winning number is respec- 
tively below or above the consecutive numbers drawn, but of 
taking quarter of the pool if the winning ticket is within the 
first or last nine of these numbers. A more gambling plan, 
designed to shut out those who only subscribe for the pur- 
pose of making a profit on the sale of their tickets to other 
passengers, is to sell only a limited number, say twenty or 
thirty, high-priced tickets and draw a number to each ticket, 
the lowest number taking all below and the highest all above. 
When the tickets are auctioned, only those who have bought 
in one or more tickets are entitled to receive the half of the 
selling price of the numbers originally owned by them, the 
pool in the case of those who buy no ticket getting all but 
the entrance money, which is refunded. In all cases non- 
owners of tickets are permitted to buy at the auction, and a 
clear statement of the conditions under which the pool is 
made up should be posted in the smoking-room and the com- 
panion-way. Whenever possible, we had the auction on 
deck. 

The posted conditions of a pool on the last plan were as 
follows : " Five shilling sweepstake selling pool on the ship's 
run to Sunday noon. Limited to 30 subscribers. Owners 
to receive half price of ticket ; but if this half is above five 
shillings the excess goes to the pool, unless the owner buys 
his own or some other ticket. Lowest ticket takes all below, 
highest all above. Five per cent of pool goes to charity. 
Numbers will be drawn this, Saturday, evening about 8.30 
in the smoking-room and then and there sold to highest bid- 
der." These thirty numbers sold at prices ranging from 
22 to 110 shillings, and aggregating £92 13s. OcZ., of which 



LONDON TO COLOMBO 7 

,£38 2s. Od. went to the ticket owners and £51 16s. Od. to 
the pool, making, with the £1 10s. Od. original subscription, 
a total of £59 6s. Ot^. Seven original subscribers failed to 
buy a ticket, and one ticket was bought by a non-subscriber. 

Decimal pools with entrance from one to ten shillings give 
another chance of speculating on the ship's run. The digits 
and cipher are drawn or allotted to the subscribers, and the 
pool is won by the number corresponding to the last unit in 
the ship's run. If the run is given in fractions of a knot, the 
pool is divided between the holder of the corresponding unit 
and the one above. It is usual to sell only one ticket in 
a decimal pool to each subscriber, but in case there are not 
enough subscribers there is no objection to subscribers having 
a plurality of tickets, as the pool must be completed by sale 
of ten tickets or the subscriptions returned. 

By permission of the captain a concert was arranged for 
one evening, and a dance on deck for another. A gymkhana 
was organised, and prizes were provided for the winners of 
each sex in the various events. We had potato races ; 
tugs-of-war ; and races where the ladies ran with cotton to 
be threaded by partners who held needles at the other end 
of the deck, the first back with a threaded needle being the 
winner; races where the competitors ran down the deck to 
a table and there drew a pig on a piece of paper, signed it, 
and ran back. Points were given for swiftness and for 
artistic excellence. A pillow fight for the younger male pas- 
sengers, who sat astride a boom under which a mattress had 
been placed and belaboured each other with pillows until one 
fell off, was a great success ; but the most amusement was 
afforded by the necktie race, where the ladies raced with 
neckties to their partners, tied them in a bow, and raced back 
to the goal, where a committee of ladies gave a judgment as 
to which one had made the best bow in the least time. Then 
there was the feeding race, where the ladies each fed, with 
a spoon from a wine-glass of water, their partners, who then 
ran back to the winning post. Points for rapidity of water 
consumption, lack of spilling, and swiftness of foot. In an- 
other competition identical problems in addition, subtraction, 



8 LONDON TO COLOMBO 

and division were set for the ladies, whose partners ran with 
the answers, the first correct paper handed in winning a prize. 

On Sunday Mass was celebrated in the saloon before break- 
fast, and Service was held after breakfast. Leaving Mar- 
seilles Thursday afternoon, we arrived at Port Said Tuesday 
morning; and between these two places the meal hours were 
from 8.30 to 9.30 a.m. for breakfast, 12.30 to 2 p.m. for 
tiffin., and at both 6 and 7.30 o'clock for dinner, as we had 
too many passengers for one table. 

Port Said is said to be peopled with the " outpourings of 
Hades, and the off-scourings of European brothels," and it 
endeavours to live all the way down to its evil reputation. 
It is an emporium of the indecencies of literature, art, and 
nature unredeemed by the saving grace of either cleanliness 
or beauty. 

The train to Cairo left in the forenoon, and as the ship had 
to wait till the following morning for the mails to arrive via 
Brindisi, some of the party made a flying trip to Cairo, and 
rejoined us at Suez, where they arrived at 5 p.m. the next 
day, and had an uncomfortable wait for the ship until 3 
o'clock the following morning. Those of us remaining wit- 
nessed the defeat of our friends in a cricket match with mem- 
bers of the Port Said Cricket Club, lunched at the Eastern 
Exchange Hotel, went to a concert at the Eldorado after 
dinner, and investigated the cosmopolitan mysteries of the 
Arab quarter before returning to the ship. 

We took nineteen hours to go through the Canal, stopping 
about an hour and three-quarters at Ismailia, where a canal 
from the Nile at Cairo brings down the fresh water which is 
conveyed by pipes to Port Said. As the limit for steamers 
is ten kilometres an hour, we did the ninety-nine miles very 
little under the limit. 

We had cool breezes until we entered the Gulf of Suez, to 
the east of which is the peninsula of Sinai, on which was 
pointed out to us peaks said to be Mt. Horeb and Mt. Sinai ; 
but after passing the Strait of Jubal and going into the Red 
Sea, double awnings were placed over the deck, curtains sus- 
pended at the sides, and at dinner the punkahs were up and 



LONDON TO COLOMBO 9 

moving. The pundits write it pankha^ which means a fan, 
and say the word is derived from the Sanscrit paksha^ mean- 
ing wing. The thermometer seldom got above 82° F. on 
deck, but it remained around that throughout the day, and 
never got below 76° at night, although it rained the night 
after we left Suez, and there was a shower the following 
afternoon. Stories of death on board ship by sunstroke or 
heat apoplexy were related by our seafaring friends, who 
believed that corpulent people were more liable to a stroke, 
and that it usually came after a sleep following a meal. The 
symptoms are stertorous breathing succeeded by collapse ; 
and the treatment is to strip the sufferer, lay him flat on his 
back with the head slightly raised, fan him, and endeavour 
to restore circulation by rubbing and slapping until con- 
sciousness returns. It frequently requires six hours' con- 
tinuous work before this result is reached, and in one case 
in the experience of one of the passengers it took eleven 
hours to restore the patient. 

The third night out from Suez was the hottest as well as 
the most interesting in the Red Sea. At midnight we 
passed the volcanic island called Jebel Teer, and we saw 
the constellation of the Southern Cross on the horizon. 
The latter disappointed those who had never seen it before, 
but it was a welcome sign of coming into the tropics, and it 
recalled the last time I had seen it in the Gulf of Panama, 
and watched it recede into the ocean as I steamed up the 
Central American coast. There was a brilliant display of 
phosphorescence that kept the younger couples leaning over 
the rails long after the Southern Cross had lost its interest. 

At noon the next day we passed through the smaller 
channel of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, east of Perim, and 
arrived about eight o'clock at Aden. It was a lovely moon- 
light night, and after watching the " have-a-dive " boys go in 
fearlessly after sixpences, in spite of the presence of sharks, 
we went ashore and drove up to the wonderful fresh-water 
tanks five miles away, from which the town gets its supply 
of rain- water. The tanks, which were begun thirteen hundred 
years ago, will now, since they have been restored, hold a three 



10 LONDON TO COLOMBO 

years' supply, or about eight million gallons, of drinking water. 
It sometimes happens that there is no rain for two or three 
years at Aden ; but when it does rain there, it is likely to pour, 
and the tanks are often filled in a few hours. There is a 
large plant for distilling sea-water from which the ships are 
usually supplied, and camels carry this water for sale up to 
the old town, situated in the crater of an extinct volcano, on 
the road to the tanks. After visiting the tanks we strolled 
into a cafe, and amused ourselves listening to a Bedouin 
chanting a verse of the Koran, which was repeated in chorus 
by most of the others present; and watching the Arabs, 
Somalis, and other tribesmen from the interior and the 
East African coast, many of whom had come over for the 
fast of Ramadan. We had engaged, at sixpence a head, 
a guide whose chief accomplishment was that he could avoid 
telling the truth in seven languages and whose principal 
duty was to chase away beggars. He told us that, including 
the one and only European child in Aden, there are about 
forty thousand inhabitants; that there is good bicycling 
on the Arabian Road for about ten miles, and many bicycles 
may be seen late in the afternoon ; that one should rise about 
daybreak, take an hour's exercise and a cold bath before 
breakfast, in order to keep in good health here, and although 
the English prefer a hot bath, cold sea- water is better ; and 
that all religions are tolerated except the siesta-disturbing 
Salvation Armj^, but that amongst Europeans the most 
popular religion is the Masonic Church ! We shocked the 
poor little man in many ways, but most of all when referring 
to the future we said " We will do so-and-so. " Then he 
insisted upon our adding " D. V." or changing our expression 
to "We hope to do so-and-so." We found our way to the 
edge of the wharf, over boxes of cotton goods, bags of coffee 
and grain, and packages of skins, and got a small boat in the 
early hours of the morning to put us on board ship. 

We had a wet night in the Arabian Sea, a deluge of rain 
with vivid thunder and lightning and a display of Elmo's 
fire on the rigging. The next day we passed the lighthouse 
on Minicoy Island and amused ourselves trying to catch 



LONDON TO COLOMBO 11 

flying-fish with a small net on the end of a long pole, but 
gave that up for the engrossing occupation of calculating 
the exact hour we would arrive at Colombo. This turned 
out to be at seven in the morning of the twenty-fourth day after 
the ship left London, and we found we had come about 7000 
sea miles, the total being made up of the following distances 
from port to port : London to Gibraltar 1300 ; to Marseilles 
693 more ; to Port Said, 1508 ; to Aden 1397 ; to Colombo 
2093 ; or London to Colombo, 6991 knots. 



CHAPTER II 



CEYLON 



Colombo Harbour. The Colpetty Road and Mount Lavinia. The Fort. 
The E'atives. Galle Face Hotel. " The Sconndrel." Kelaniya. The 
Coast Railway. Galle. Peradeniya Gardens and Kandy. Tea. 

The approacli to " Lanka's Isle " on a clear morning is 
something to be remembered, not only on account of what is 
actually seen but as an introduction to the sights and scenes 
of the far East. The mountains at the core of the pear- 
shaped island, topped by Sumana, or Adam's Peak, stand up 
in the background, while from their base to the fringe of 
cocoanut palms on the coast-line there seems to be nothing 
but a dense green jungle. You may catch sight of Mount 
Lavinia Hotel seven miles south, or the lighthouse in 
Colombo, before coming to anchor under the protection of 
the breakwater ; but when the vessel is once moored, there 
are other things to look at. The ship will be at once sur- 
rounded by queer craft containing a miscellaneous assort- 
ment of humanity, emitting a confusing Babel of noises. 
The naked boys in "dug-out" canoes armed with small 
plain paddles like a lath, are waiting to dive for coins or 
pick up other trifles dropped from the ship ; and sometimes a 
party of them would come out on a raft-like catamaran. 
Outrigger canoes, very narrow but very safe, compete with 
the steam-launches and whale-boats for the honour of carry- 
ing you and your belongings ashore. 

TamUes invade the ship and offer you bargains in all sorts 
of goods, but we resisted their swindling devices and sub- 
mitted later to the milder form of cheating practised by the 
regular native or Indian shopkeepers. Dhobies offered to 

12 



CEYLON 13 

take the soiled linen of those going on by the ship and to 
return the wash during the day ; and tailors promised you 
complete suits of white or khaki clothes in the same short 
time. 

Some of the large boats in the harbour were worked with 
peculiar oars shaped like an elongated mustard spoon ; and 
some small boys in a tiny boat were moving about at a good 
pace by using their loin-cloths as sails. We put our luggage 
in the charge of the hotel porters who came aboard ship, and 
went ashore in a canoe, for which the boatman got a shilling 
a head, instead of his legal fare of sixpence, or rather a 
quarter of a rupee. There was no examination of passen- 
gers' ordinary luggage at the custom-house, but every nailed- 
up box, however small, had to be opened, and firearms had 
to pay duty. Those of us who had paid ten shillings in 
London for the luxury knew that our safe arrival would be 
announced to our friends in England the same morning if we 
took care to hand in our cable ticket to Reuter's agent on 
landing. 

In sjoite of the many pleasant acquaintances made on the 
voyage, we fully appreciated the feeling of relief so many 
travellers profess upon leaving a P. & O. steamship, and 
were glad to be free to change to some other line. The 
main cause of complaint was the food, which by the time we 
got into the Arabian Sea was almost uneatable. It was fair 
as far as Suez, but very bad from there to Colombo. Among 
minor comforts, even ship letter-paper was conspicuous by its 
absence. However, we found the dates of other liners would 
not suit us from Colombo to Singapore, and we accordingly 
stopped at the P. & O. office to put our names down for 
berths. There we found that nothing definite could be 
booked before the steamer's arrival, as no cable information 
of berths engaged is sent in advance from Bombay to Colombo. 
As a result of this bad arrangement, six passengers in one 
party were offered, when the ship arrived, berths in no less 
than five different cabins. 

Protected by straw hats and sun-umbrellas we first went 
and bought solar topees, and felt safe from the effects of *the 



14 CEYLON 

sun under our pith or cork headgear. We had been warned 
of the danger of exposing ourselves to the sun, and were not 
surprised to hear later in the day that one man who had 
tempted Providence in a cloth cap had fallen victim to a 
severe sunstroke. After a narrow escape from being run 
down by one of the cars of the electric trolley lines that have 
their joint terminus opposite the Grand Oriental Hotel, 
locally known as the " G. O. H,," we took rickshaws to the 
Galle Face Hotel, to see if our luggage had safely arrived ; 
but when we approached the gateway to the hotel grounds, 
our coolies stopped short and said they were not allowed to 
go any farther, so we asked them the fare and paid our two 
shillings each. When we got to the door, we found how 
neatly we had been tricked; for there was no reason for stop- 
ping at the gate, except to prevent our seeing the very con- 
spicuous scale of fares posted at the door, which showed that 
we had been charged six times the proper amount. 

We devoted the rest of the day to seeing the sights in the 
company of some of our fellow-passengers who were leaving 
on the morrow for Australia. We hrst drove to Mount 
Lavinia by way of the KoUupitiya (or Colpetty) Road, — a 
drive full of interest and entertainment, for it is an epitome 
of most that is pleasant in the life of the island. 

The Fort at Colombo, with its bright, clean buildings and 
broad, hot roads, is mostly occupied by business houses and 
government offices, while to the east lies the Pettah Division, 
where, in dust and bad odours, the poorer natives mostly con- 
gregate, and where trade and commerce can be seen in their 
ugliest forms ; but to the south and east of Galle Face are the 
newer suburbs where the well-to-do classes have their homes, 
and take their pleasures, amusements, and recreations amidst 
trees and shady gardens. We had the choice of going singly 
by rickshaws drawn by two coolies, or in couples by bullock- 
hackeries, or four of us in a carriage drawn by a wretched 
horse ; and we selected the latter method of conveyance for 
the sake of sociability. We fully expected to turn out au,d 
walk most of the way, but the willing animal pulled us 
gamely over the smooth, level roads at a very fair pace, and 



CEYLON 15 

looked no worse for it at the finish ; and we were too absorbed 
in the kaleidoscopic sights of the road to think much about 
the horse during the drive. The diversity of races and cos- 
tumes, and the variety of the vegetation, especially palms and 
other endogens, lend a peculiar charm and picturesqueness to 
this short drive that is particularly grateful to the traveller 
after the monotony of life aboard ship. The cocoanut palm 
is ubiquitous, but there is also the jak, tamarind, almond, 
mango, and vanilla, the beautiful fan or traveller's palm, and 
even the kital and palmyra. Near the new race course in 
Victoria Park, formerly called the Cinnamon Gardens, the 
sensitive plant abounds, and the cinnamon bushes cover the 
white sand. The growing and preparation of this spice still 
remains entirely in native hands. 

Along the road are Christian churches for Europeans and 
natives, Hindu temples for the Tamils, Buddhist temples for 
the Singhalese, and mosques for the Moormen and Malays. 
Individuals of these various races and cross-breeds of all sorts 
and of all tints of complexion, from the nearly white burghers 
(mostly of white fathers and Singhalese mothers, and some 
of them descendants from the old Dutch and Portuguese 
colonists) to the brown Tamil or almost coal-black Moorman, 
swarm around the road. The Singhalese men look quaintly 
effeminate in their petticoat-like garments, with their hair 
drawn back in a knob, and a semicircular comb worn diadem- 
fashion. The Buddhist monk, with shaven pate, goes by, his 
yellow robes rustling in the breeze, followed by a boy carry- 
ing his large shield-shaped palm-leaf sun-umbrella. The sleek 
Bombay merchant and the fierce-looking, bearded Moorman 
rub shoulders, and the Tamil coolies toil contentedly at their 
labour, doing good service with their mamooties, — a sort of 
mattock shaped like a carpenter's adze, but with a longer and 
wider blade. These Tamils from southern India do the bulk 
of the work on the up-country tea estates as carriers and 
labourers. The full-grown men wear a tape or string around 
the waist, to the back of which is fastened a strip of cotton 
cloth about six inches wide, which passes down between the 
legs and up under the string in front, the loose end of the 



16 CEYLON 

strip falling over and hanging down five or six inches. A 
ticket or charm hanging around the neck, with the decoration 
of the forehead, after the daily bath, with three horizontal 
lines of ashes from burnt cow-dung, completes their costume. 
The Tamil women, as also the women of other races in Cey- 
lon, are modestly clad, and generally keep the breasts cov- 
ered. They wear ornaments in the side of the nose, the left 
nostril only being usually pierced, but sometimes both, and 
rings are worn not only on the fingers, but on the toes. They 
do their share of the hard work, and we even saw some small 
children breaking road-metal on the wayside ; but, as a rule, 
the little ones, swollen out with a diet of rice water, run about 
free from all care and clothing. Children of rich parents often 
wear heavy ear-rings, or more frequently a silver or even jew- 
elled ornament tied round the waist, and dangling down in 
lieu of a fig-leaf, — a notice that clothing is dispensed with 
from choice and not from poverty. 

The census of March, 1901, showed a population of 3,566,000 
in Ceylon as compared with 3,012,000 in 1891. The total is 
made up as follows : — 

Singhalese 2,331,000 

Tamils 952,000 

Moormen 228,000 

Burghers and Eurasians 23,000 

Malays 10,000 

Resident Europeans 6,000 

Others 16,000 3,566,000 

The population of Colombo increased during the same 
period from 126,825 to over 155,000. 

At the Grand Hotel, Mount Lavinia, we were induced to 
drink cocoanut milk, fresh from nuts brought down by expert 
climbers, who swarmed up the trees, with their feet tied loosely 
together to give them a grip on the smooth trunks. We 
agreed that we had seldom tasted a more insipid beverage. 

We drove back through a throng of carriages, of bullock- 
carts, drawn by slow-moving beasts with humps over their 
shoulders, and guided by a rope through the nose, of rick- 
shaws drawn by splay-footed Tamils, and of occasional pony- 



CEYLON 17 

traps or bullock-hackeries, the latter going at a surprisingly- 
smart pace. 

Our dinner was most cheery, and we did full justice to the 
most excellent curries, made with the juice pressed from 
scraped cocoanut, and served with a great variety of relishes, 
such as plain and devilled grated cocoanut, mango, cocoanut, 
and other chutneys, and small pickled onions. We had for 
dessert iced mangosteens, one of the few tropical fruits that 
compare favourably with those of the temperate zones, and 
we kept the waiter busy cutting off the upper halves of the 
tough, leathery, deep maroon rinds ornamented with a star- 
shaped excrescence on the flat top, and handing us the 
luscious fruit. We smoked our cigars on the covered ve- 
randa, while watching a heavy rain and vivid lightning 
storm, and then to bed, in rooms separated by thin walls 
reaching only halfway to the leaky ceiling, a capital arrange- 
ment for coolness and airiness ; but as every movement in 
the neighbouring rooms is painfully distinct, a poor lookout 
for any one troubled with insomnia. However, it was a vast 
improvement on a ship's cabin, and a great comfort, after 
having been interviewed in the bath-room by cockroaches 
fully two inches long, to lie under the mosquito netting on 
a big soft bed, instead of the narrow shelf of a berth to which 
we had become accustomed. 

Our first care the following morning was to engage a "boy," 
and we addressed ourselves to the hotel porter to procure us 
the necessary evil. Since 1871 all servants are registered by 
the police, and are given a book in which each employer in 
succession fills up a form giving the rate of wages paid, the 
duties for which the servant was engaged, the length of time 
he or she remained in the position, the cause of leaving, and 
a character. If the latter is very bad, the servant promptly 
loses the book, and applies for a new one. It is the custom 
to leave the book with the employer during the period of 
service, and we found afterward that our boy had already 
lost two books, that the one left in our hands was full of 
unsatisfactory details in regard to the boy's character, and 
that an earlier perusal would have acquainted us with the 



18 CEYLON 

fact that he was asking us to pay him for his services four 
times as much as he had ever received before. But we had not 
been warned to ask for and examine his book before engag- 
ing him, and were told that good boys were hard to get, so 
we engaged him out of hand on his own terms, and upon the 
porter's recommendation. His English was somewhat limited, 
and he found it so difficult to pronounce our names that he 
concluded by calling each one " Massa," and was rejoiced 
when we gave him the highly descriptive title of " the 
scoundrel." However, he was a willing if lazy slave, only 
got blind drunk once, and limited his stealings to an auto- 
matic cigar-lighter, which he very much admired, and called 
" Massa's fire-box. " Having engaged him, and advanced 
him ten rupees on account, we took him for better or worse, 
and kept him till we left Ceylon. 

The German manager of the Galle Face Hotel disclaimed 
any responsibility for the luggage, wash, mail, or telegrams 
of his guests, or for any of the acts or omissions of his ser- 
vants. He was content to declare that they, as well as all 
other servants in Ceylon, are rascals, thieves, and liars, and 
thinks he has done his full duty in so warning you. 

We devoted one day to the northern end of the town, 
driving through the Fort, where the punkah-wallahs on the 
verandas were sluggishly pulling the ropes with their feet, 
and thence into the Pettah where the Moormen traders 
gather, and where there is a Thieves' Market into which 
goods and chattels mysteriously lost or stolen usually find 
their way. We looked in at another market to see the 
fruits and vegetables, and the many stalls exhibiting for 
sale the areca-nut, the leaves of the betel pepper, the ginger, 
the tobacco, and the chunam^ — ■ a fine slaked lime produced 
from calcined coral, — all used together by the natives for 
their habitual " chew." We went through the quarter where 
the Indian rice-dealers, or chetties, congregate, and came to 
the old Wolvendaal Church, capable of holding a thousand 
worshippers. 

The engineer of the new Harbour Extension Works and 
Graving Dock had invited us to visit the works, so we took 



CEYLON 19 

this opportunity of inspecting the plant, and the various 
processes of making the Portland cement concrete in steam 
mixers, filling it into the teak moulds, and handling and set- 
ting the fifteen to thirty ton concrete blocks both above and 
under water. Then we went through the Roman Catholic 
suburb of Mutwal to the Kelani-ganga, crossed over by the 
Victoria Bridge, and followed the river bank up about two 
miles to the Buddhist temple to see the dagaha and the 
bo-tree. Here the kindly old priests gave us some " temple 
flowers " (the alaria or frangipanni of the West Indies), and 
the following copy of " The Laws of the Lord " : — 

1. Destroy not any life. 

2. Take not that which is not given. 

3. Refrain from unlawful sexual intercourse. 

4. Scrupulously avoid every kind of untruth. 

5. Drink not intoxicating liquors. 

We told them we preferred Sir Edwin Arnold's rendering 
of the Five Rules, but the author of " The Light of Asia " 
was unknown to the high priests of Kelaniya and we turned 
back from the neglected shrine and returned by another 
road from the Bridge to the Galle Face Hotel, passing the 
bathing-place in the lake. 

Another day we had an early breakfast, beginning with 
papaya (or papaw), a fruit like a sweet melon with seeds 
similar in appearance to capers, eaten with lime-juice and sugar, 
and finishing off with curried " lady-fingers. " The latter is the 
okra of Greece and the West Indies, the vegetable commonly 
used in the southern United States to make " gumbo " soup. 
The papaya is of the passion-flower family and is believed 
to have been introduced into India from North America, 
where it is indigenous to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico 
and where it is called the papaw or pawpaw. The fruit, 
which is produced only by the female tree, is highly valued 
for its medicinal qualities and is a powerful digestive. After 
breakfast we took the first train by the Sea-coast Line to 
Galle. There are twenty-five stations between Colombo and 
Galle, and it takes about four hours to do the seventy-four 
miles. The railway, which is so full of curves that it is said 



20 CEYLON 

to "dodge the cocoanut trees," follows the winding but excel- 
lent highroad southeastwardly along the coast, and the trip, 
although hot and dusty, is certainly interesting. The locomo- 
tive carries a cow-catcher, and at the Slave Island station a 
horse, attached to a carriage containing four people, fell on 
the line and was bodily lifted to one side by the cow-catcher, 
escaping with a few bruises while the people in the carriage 
were unhurt. The line runs through a populous district, the 
thickly scattered houses being mostly built with walls of palm- 
leaf mats or dohe and the roofs are tiled or thatched. Most 
of the cocoanut trees in the compounds are bound round 
halfway up the trunk with dried palm-leaves as a protection 
against thieves, whose attempts to steal the nuts by climbing 
the trees would be betrayed by the crackling of the dried 
leaves. The sea is in sight from time to time, and fishing 
seems to be the continual occupation of the inhabitants. The 
long nets are taken out by outrigger canoes, with sails, called 
warkamoowee and afterward slowly drawn in from the shore. 
We made the circuit of the ramparts of the old fort at Galle, 
visited All Saints' Church, and walked through the sleepy 
town after luncheon at the Rest House. But we hardly felt 
repaid by what we saw for the eight hours spent in the 
crawling train, and we were glad when night came and we 
arrived back at Colombo. 

It is worth while going some morning or evening to the 
top of Maligakanda Hill, near the Maradana railway station, 
where the service reservoir of the Colombo Waterworks is 
situated, if only to see how completely the town and suburbs 
are concealed by the palm trees. There is a Buddhist temple 
near the foot of the hill where one may linger for a few 
moments before walking up. At the top we found a few 
Singhalese boys flying kites, native fashion, with the tails up. 

On the day we landed, Cautley and I had begun to make 
preparations for a trip to one of the ruined cities and had 
wired to the Rest House keeper at Matale to reserve us the 
box-seat on the coach to Anuradhapura ; and as soon as we 
knew that our places were engaged, we left Colombo. 
The railway to Kandy is the pride of Ceylon, and many 



CEYLON 21 

make the journey to Kandy and back simply for the sake of 
the views which are to be seen from the right-hand side of 
the train going up. The gauge of the road is five feet six 
inches, the standard of the railways in India. For the first 
fifty miles the country is low-lying and very unhealthy, but 
at Rambuldvana the ascent commences, and between this and 
Kadugannawa, the next station, the line mounts in about 
twelve miles nearly fourteen hundred feet and then descends 
slightly to Peradeniya Junction where one changes cars to 
the branch line for Kandy, twelve minutes further on. 

We had a permit from the general manager to ride on the 
engine, and availed ourselves of the privilege going up the 
gliat^ where two were attached to the train. The engineer 
explained to us the use of the lever or "tell-tale arm" 
attached to a chain running the length of the train and 
fastened to the forward engine, so that the angle of the arm's 
elevation enables the engineer on the rear engine to regulate 
the power to be applied in pushing the train. He stated that 
wood, as well as Indian and Australian coal, was used on 
the engines, which were working at one hundred and fifty 
pounds' pressure. Ootooankanda (Camel Rock) or " Robbers 
Rock," the former stronghold of the bandit Sardiels, was 
pointed out to us across the valley. The railroad winds up 
the side of the steep mountain of Alagalla, and there are 
places where one can look from the train window down sheer 
precipices into the Dekanda Valley, while all along the line 
the scenery is exceptionally fine. Sensation Rock, at the top 
of the pass, affords a beautiful panorama of the low country. 

After visiting the Peradeniya Gardens (surrounded on 
three sides by the Mahawelli-ganga), where there has been 
brought together a magnificent collection of tropical trees 
and plants, and where our attention was called to the gigantic 
rubber trees, we went over a tea-factory near by, and saw the 
various processes of converting the leaf of the tea camellia 
into the product ready for the tea-table. A century ago 
an unsuccessful attempt was made to cultivate tea in Ceylon, 
but it only began to be grown and exported in 1884, since 
when it has rapidly become the most valuable export from 



22 CEYLON 

the island. The managers of the estates are Europeans, and 
many of them are young Scotchmen, the sons of market 
gardeners. " Creepers," as young assistants are called, who 
come out to learn the business, are glad to accept billets at 
one hundred rupees a month, and billets are harder to find 
than creepers, even at that small pay. Tamils are the best 
labourers, and are preferred where they can be got, while 
women and children are employed to pluck the leaves. 
All the different grades and qualities of tea come from 
the same plant, the finest being made from the young 
leaves just budding out. The leaves are gathered and 
spread out evenly to wither for twelve hours or so, and when 
soft are crushed or rolled so that the leaves are broken and 
the juice oozes out. Then the wet mass is allowed to fer- 
ment ; and when this critical operation has reached the proper 
point, which is judged from the colour assumed by the leaf, 
it is spread for a short time in the sun and then dried by 
heated air. After being sifted and packed it is ready for 
market. At Kandy we visited the Dalada Maligawa, or 
Temple of the Tooth, where is enshrined a relic alleged to 
be a tooth of Buddha, also " Adam's Footmark," the Tombs 
of the Kings, and other local sights ; but more interesting 
than these are the drives around the hills and the natural 
beauties of the vicinity. 



CHAPTER III 



CEYLOIS" 



jNIatale and the Coach to Amiradhapiira. Bicychiig in Ceylon. The 
Northern Road. The Ruined Cities. The Bo-tree. The Dagabas 
and Other Monuments. The Fever Season. The Brazen Palace. 
The Rock Temple. One of the World's Wonders. 

Feom Kandy we went by train in an hour to Matale, and 
found rooms reserved for us at the Rest House there. The 
system of Rest Houses established in Ceylon is excellent, and 
far superior to the Dak Bungalow system of India. Rooms 
may be engaged in advance, and the beds are good and the 
bedding clean. The charges for these go to government, 
but the Rest House keeper supplies food, drink, and other 
comforts at an established tariff, and prompt satisfaction is 
given if there is any just cause for complaint. We had a 
very good dinner at the Matale Rest House ; hot baths were 
supplied, and, with perhaps the exception that the cloth ceil- 
ing to our bedroom was somewhat dilapidated, we found 
everything very satisfactory. 

There is a very cheap and good telegraph service in Cey- 
lon, the charge for eight words being a quarter of a rupee or 
twenty-five cents, equal in value to about fourpence ; the 
address is free, as is delivery within a mile of the office. We 
found it necessary, in order to be quite sure of getting our 
wants supplied, to telegraph to DambuUa to order the next 
day's lunch, and to Anuradhapura to reserve rooms during 
our stay, and places in the coach for our return. 

The Matale coach is a covered wagonette with a seat in 
front to hold two beside the driver, and lengthwise seats at 
the sides, each to hold four. The seats are cushionless, and 
the springs poor, and we were glad of our wire pillows and 

23 



24 CEYLON 

our rugs to sit on during the twelve hours' drive to Anurad- 
hapura. The distance is only about sixty-eight miles, divided 
into sixteen stages, so that the pace between stops is only 
about six miles an hour. Two horses draw the coach, and 
never outside of a knacker's yard was such a collection of 
diseased, broken-down, and vicious horses seen as the thirty- 
two poor beasts that, with harness to match, laboriously 
dragged us during the day's drive. The coach was full, and 
contained three on the front seat, eight inside, and one on 
the step in front, and one on the back step — thirteen in all, 
together with about three hundred pounds of luggage slung 
underneath, and half a dozen mail-bags on top ; and the evi- 
dent sufferings of the poor animals pulling this enormous 
load in the tropical sun spoilt an otherwise interesting drive. 

The time and fare table informed us that there were four 
classes, the fare for the first class, which included Europeans 
and high officials, is fifteen rupees each, burghers (half- 
castes) and mudaliars (head natives) must pay ten rupees, 
ordinary native officers and tradesmen somewhat less, and 
coolies and ordinary natives seven rupees. In Ceylon and 
throughout the East, except in the Dutch East Indies, " a 
European " means " a white man " whether European, Ameri- 
can, Australian, Canadian, South American, or from any other 
part of the world. The accommodation on the coach is the 
same for all ; but the superior have choice of seats over 
the inferior classes; and if there is not room for all, then the 
holders of inferior-class tickets must remain behind. In 
order to be sure of a seat at an intermediate station a seat 
may be booked by paying the fare from the terminal station. 
Only thirty pounds' luggage is taken free for first-class pas- 
sengers. The whole coach can be engaged for three passen- 
gers for sixty rupees each way, and fifteen rupees extra for 
each additional passenger. Beyond Anuradhapura up to 
Jaffna the coach is a springless covered cart, capable of carry- 
ing two passengers and the mails, drawn by two bullocks, and 
the pace is about three miles an hour. 

We met an enterprising couple who had bicycled from 
Kandy in two days, riding only in the cool of the mornings 



CEYLON 25 

and evenings. They left Kandy one evening and bicycled 
the seventeen miles to Matale, from whence they started the 
next morning at 7 and did the twenty-eight miles to Dam- 
bulla by 10. 45, having walked up all the hills. The next morn- 
ing they were off at 7.15 and arrived at Tirappanai, about 
twenty-five miles, at 10.20. Leaving the same afternoon at 
4 they did the remaining fourteen miles to Anuradhapura by 
5.45 P.M. There are plenty of good bicycling roads in 
Ceylon, in fact the surface of the roads is everywhere good, 
but there are plenty of long grades to surmount. A good 
brake and "tropical tyres" are necessary, while a low gear is 
the most satisfactory. 

Matale is prettily situated, and the seventeenth mile-post 
from Kandy is in the village. The road to Anuradhapura is 
well metalled and drained, but in places where there had been 
recent repairs the surface had not yet been rolled. The first 
stages to Nalanthai are pretty and well shaded, and very 
pleasant in the morning air. Just after passing the twenty- 
first mile-post there is a hill to go down, and some sharp turns 
in the road, which then crosses over a bridge, and up a short 
hill. Near Nalanthai there is a river crossed by an iron bridge, 
and a couple of miles farther on a steep hill to ascend where 
first-class passengers walk and the others push. A narrow 
bridge is crossed just before the thirty-fifth mile-post and a 
short hill follows. Another iron bridge succeeded by another 
hill to be walked, brings us to the forty -first mile-post. Five 
miles farther on is DambuUa, and from Nalanthai the road has 
been fairly shady, and the incidents of the journey were of 
sufficient interest to prevent monotony. There are posts 
every quarter of a mile, the one-quarter being indicated by a 
triangle, the one-half mile by a square, and the three-fourths 
by a combined square and triangle. During the last stage 
before DambuUa, where we had an excellent luncheon at the 
Rest House, cocoanut palms, the surest mdication of recent 
habitation, began to be scarce, but on the whole the morning's 
journey was full of variety. Jack-fruit, bread-fruit, and wild 
pepper grow along the roadside, and the white egret or paddy- 
bird, snipe, jungie-cock and fowls, jungle-crow, and kite, fly 



26 CEYLON 

from time to time over the road and disappear into the thickets ; 
jackals, mongoose, and snakes put in an appearance, and a small 
leopard ran across the road just ahead of us. We even heard 
wild elephants in the jungle but never saw one. The road from 
DambuUa runs northward straight through the jungle, and 
there is hardly a sign of human habitation, except at the end 
of each stage where we changed horses. Night fell before 
we arrived at Anuradhapura, and we rejoiced when our 
day's journey came to an end as the Rest House lights came 
into view at quarter past eight. The coach is due to arrive 
at 8 P.M., and is usually, we were told, one to three hours 
late, and one night it turned up at 1.30 a.m. 

Any one who has read H. W. Cave's " Ruined Cities of 
Ceylon " or Wallace's description of Anuradhapura will un- 
derstand that there is much of absorbing interest to be seen, 
and that many days may be spent in exploring the ruins of 
this great city founded about the time of Buddha's death, 
nearly twenty-four centuries ago, and for many centuries buried 
in the jungle and lost to mankind. Buddhism was introduced 
into Ceylon by Prince Mahinda over three hundred years before 
our era, and Anuradhapura and Mihintale, eight miles to the 
eastward, were the strongholds of the new religion. There 
are written records of the city's early history and of the 
planting, in the third century B.C., of the cutting from 
" The Bodhi-tree (thenceforward in all years Never to fade, 
and ever to be kept In homage of the world) beneath whose 
leaves It was ordained the Truth should come to Buddh," 
and there are numerous references in Indian literature dur- 
ing the intervening centuries to establish the fact that the 
"bo-tree" has lived through all the ages since. Meanwhile 
the city rose until its citizens, occupying the 250 square 
miles enclosed within its walls, probably numbered two 
to three million souls, — a city larger in area than, and equal 
in population to, Paris of to-day. This great city with 
its stupendous monuments was destined, through the fortunes 
of war, to fall into decay and finally to be overwhelmed and 
covered by the jungle, existing only in legend until recent 
years, when a systematic plan was adopted to unearth some 





Rest House and Coach, Anuradhapura, Ceylon. 



CEYLON 27 

of the more important buildings, and to repair tlie tanks and 
to uproot the trees that had covered the great dagahas and 
given them the appearance of precipitous liills rising above 
the level plain. 

It is these dagahas (dagohas or daghopas) or topes that are 
the most interesting of the ancient monuments. They are 
countless in number and of all sizes, and are generally of 
solid brickwork. The half dozen larger ones are each said 
to contain some relic of Buddha enclosed in receptacles one 
within the other, which decrease in the value of the material 
of which they are composed as they increase in size, and 
finally are placed in the centre of the structure which is 
built solidly around them. The form is bell-shaped, sur- 
mounted by a cube supporting a conical spire, both of which 
have in most cases fallen. There are pokunas, or tanks, 
innumerable for drinking water and bathing, and ruins of 
palaces, temples, and statues, some of them being restored 
and some still hidden in the rank vegetation. 

Two roads, an outer and inner circle, begun about fifteen 
years before our visit, enabled us to make the circuit of the 
principal monuments, and both rounds can be made in one 
day if time presses. Procuring the services of the town 
librarian as guide, we chartered the only trap in the place 
and explored the outer circle, first visiting the double, or 
Kuttam, pokuna, and then the Jetawanarama Dagaba, the 
second in size, whose present height is about 250 feet. 
This was still covered with trees, among which countless 
monkeys were disporting themselves. The base was cleared, 
and there has been brought to light a fine lotus altar, 
now covered with the offerings of pilgrims, many of whom 
we had seen on the road and around the Rest House. 
Many had come from Burma to make the pilgrimage to the 
sacred Bo-tree, and their bright costumes could be seen 
from time to time fiitting through the trees as we drove 
along. We plucked specimens of the " cobra-plant " with 
its two sharp curved thorns, and noticed the swarms of brill- 
iantly tinted butterflies at this dagaba before we left to go 
to the ruins of the palace of Maha Sen, where there are fine 



28 CEYLON 

granite monolitlis. Here, before the ancient entrance, is a 
fine " moon-stone," decorated with concentric semi-circles of 
lotus leaves separated by a procession of elephants, horses, 
lions, and bulls, and by another of geese, all carved in relief, 
and almost as perfect as when it was placed in position 
1600 years ago. 

We next passed the " Elephant's Stable," and came to the 
ruins of the Peacock Palace, with its carved stair-rails, and 
we saw statues of Buddha with a head covering carved in 
the shape of a cobra's hood. Five large statues of Buddha 
seated and several pohunas came next. At every turn are 
ruins waiting to be unearthed and brought to light by the 
intelligent but slow efforts of the officer in charge of the 
archaeological works, who is doing wonderfully well with 
the very limited means at his disposal. Besides the scientific 
value of the archseological discoveries already effected, there 
have been commercial benefits from the repairing of the 
tanks. Our guide informed us that land had sold as high 
as 100 rupees per acre which formerly could have been 
bought at 10 rupees. 

Although at the time of our visit the fever season was 
supposed to be over, we took small precautionary doses of 
quinine night and morning. In Ceylon quinine may be 
taken with advantage in similar doses to those customary in 
England and other moist countries, say up to fifteen grains 
as an exceptionally big dose. In dryer countries larger 
doses are not uncommon. If you do not expose yourself to 
danger from the direct effects of the sun, and can stand 
high temperatures, the hottest weather is the safest to explore 
the jungle, for fevers and sickness are less to be feared then 
than at any other time. 

Close to the Rest House at the beginning of the Inner 
Circle is the Brazen Palace, a grove of squared stone pillars, 
standing more or less upright without a sign of the metal 
from which it takes its name, and without any crosspieces 
or other remains of a roof. A short distance farther on is 
the enclosure containing the sacred Bo-tree, which is so 
walled up with terraces of masonry that no accurate idea 



CEYLON 29 

of the size of the trunk can be formed, but it is a noble tree, 
and the courtyard is filled with its progeny. The leaves are 
nearly heart-shaped, are obtusely scalloped, and have a con- 
tinuation of the leaf-stem in the form of an almost straight 
tendril. The courtyard and trees are full of monkeys pro- 
tected by the priests with religious care in remembrance of 
Hanuman, the monkey god, who rescued the incarnation of 
Vishnu known as Rama. We bought bananas to feed the 
little animals, but they were shy of us and scampered out of 
reach as soon as they could seize a morsel. We left the 
monkeys to go to the Miriswetiya Dagaba, which was in 
process of restoration by a Siamese prince. The top had 
been cleared, and the outer layers of brickwork partly re- 
stored, when work was abandoned for lack of funds, it is said; 
and we ascended something like sixty feet by a primitive 
ladder left by the workmen and worked our way to the top 
at the risk of our necks. Nearest of all to the Rest House 
is the Ruanweli Dagaba, one of the oldest and finest, although 
it has been much reduced in height. The platform is sur- 
rounded by elephants' heads in brickwork, and prominent 
among many of the remains on it are three large statues of 
Buddhas in line with a still larger one of some king. There 
is also a spire. Restoration is carried on by the pilgrims, 
who buy bricks at two Singhalese cents apiece, and carefully 
add as many as they can afford to the slowly increasing mass. 
Another dagaba with three rows of columns at its base was 
known, we were informed, as the Lankarama Dagaba. 

The Rock Temple of Isurumuniya, the most picturesque 
of all the ancient monuments, built on and in an isolated 
mass of rock jutting up by the side of a tank, has interesting 
sculptured tablets, and some frescoes, and from the topmost 
platform a fine view is to be had of Mihintale, where the 
apostle Mahinda came to dwell. The eight-foot high mono- 
lithic statue of a seated Buddha, the stone canopy so ingen- 
iously restored, and one of the great tanks had also to be 
seen. We saw the nearly perfect dome of the Maha Seya 
Dagaba, as well as the Thuparama Dagaba. The latter had 
been recently gilded in large patches by Burmese and Siamese 



30 CEYLON 

pilgrims, and is only 60 feet high, and 40 feet in diameter, 
but the oldest of all, and the most completely restored as 
far as the main structure goes. The platform is still littered 
with the ornamental columns, each of a single stone, a small 
proportion, only, remaining standing. There is a monolithic 
cistern near the entrance. 

We had reserved for the last the Abhayagiriya Dagaba, 
which was completed two thousand years ago. This is the 
largest, and has a base covering 8 acres, a circumference of 
over 1100 feet, and measured, when we saw it, 330 feet to the 
top of the broken cone which caps the structure, and which 
originally rose 405 feet from the base. Think of a solid 
dome of brickwork reaching with its pinnacle as high as 
St. Paul's Cathedral to the top of the cross, or of St. Peter's, 
from the pavement to base of the lantern, and containing 
over 20,000,000 cubic feet of bricks. This does not, of 
course, compare with the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which is 
built on a square of 755 feet and covers 13 acres. The 
height of that is now 451 feet, originally 481 feet, and its 
solid contents are estimated at 85,000,000 cubic feet. But 
Abhayagiriya is bigger than the Third, or Red Pyramid, 
which occupies a square of 346 feet, and was 215 feet 
high when completed. There are some carious carvings 
on the altars that have been unearthed at the base of this 
dagaba. In spite of some recent attempts to render the 
ruined top safe, we were warned against going to the sum- 
mit, and were reluctantly compelled to forego the ascent and 
miss the fine view of the surrounding country that would 
have been our reward. 



CHAPTER IV 

CEYLON 

Dambulla. The Eailways to Bandarawella. The Tea-planters. Sport, 
Go-as-you-please Spelling. Nuwara Eliya. The Ascent of Pedro. 
Hakgalla Gardens. From Ceylon to Java. Penang. Water-spouts. 
Singapore. A Curious Illusion. Krakatoa. 

On our return from Anuradhapura we lunched at Kekka- 
ravai, and shortly afterward had a delay of three-quarters of 
an hour while a fresh horse was sent for to replace one of ours 
that had dropped dead m the traces. We filled in the time 
opening one of the numerous white-ant hills that are scat- 
tered all along the road. At Dambulla (or Dambool) we 
left the coach to visit the Rock Temples and inspect the old 
frescoes, and the reclining statues of Buddha nearly fifty feet 
long, and carved out of the living rock ; and after going to 
the top of the Rock for a view of the surrounding country, 
of which the most prominent object is the Rock of Sigiri to 
the east, rejoined our conveyance at the forty -fourth mile-post, 
which we left at 4 p.m., arriving at Matale at 8.35 p.m. We 
passed many bullock carts on the way laden with tobacco 
from Jaffna, and pack -bullocks laden with rice, and, as night 
fell, witnessed many a quaint domestic scene as the Burmese 
pilgrims gathered around the camp-fires on the roadside. 
The tinned butter we got at the Rest Houses came from 
France, Australia, and India. 

We slept at Matale, and the next morning took the 9.20 
train for Bandarawella, the terminus of the main line from 
Colombo, changing at Peradeniya Junction, between which 
station and Nawalapitiya we had tifBn in the refreshment 
car. The line ascends the valley of the Mahawelli-ganga, 
first through paddy-fields (paddy, or padi, is rice before it is 

31 



32 CEYLON 

divested of its husks) and then through tea estates, and 
affords a succession of fine views. Between Galboda and 
Watawala we passed the point where a landslip occurred in 
1886 which blocked the line for six months. Near Hatton 
the line passes through the longest tunnel in the island, 
measuring 1842 feet. The station is 4141 feet above the sea, 
and is the centre of great tea estates, built up on the old 
coffee plantations which were ruined by the ravages of the 
fungus that attacked and destroyed the coffee-plants in the 
decade ending in 1880. The line descends from the tunnel 
to Talawakele, affording views of the Great Western range 
of mountains, the Dimbula Valley, and, near the latter sta- 
tion, of the St. Clair Falls. After leaving Talawakele the 
Bridal Veil Fall appears on the left, and the line begins its 
stiff ascent to Nanu-oya, 5291 feet above the sea. Near 
Watagoda is the " soda water bottle curve," and the turnings 
and twistings of the line to gain altitude in a contracted space 
show what difficult engineering problems had to be overcome, 
and how much skill and ingenuity were employed. Adam's 
Peak, which we had seen from Hatton, now dominated the 
landscape, and the Dimbula Valley was spread out below 
us. Close to Nanu-oya, where we again changed cars, the 
line passes by a bridge over a waterfall, and the carriage- 
road to Nuwara Eliya runs up this valley to the point where 
it forks and branches off to Horton Plains and Elk Plains. 
Farther on are a succession of views to the right, and a much 
finer waterfall. On the way up, one of the planters signalled 
by means of a mirror to his estate, fifteen miles away across 
the valley, that he was on the train, and received an answering 
message by heliograph. Still ascending, we reached, between 
Pattipola and Ohiya, the summit of the line, 6224 feet above 
the sea. Just beyond Ohiya the line is on the watershed, 
and we looked down on either side over the grass patanas of 
the Uva Province, and over mountains and valley, rivers and 
jungle, to the horizon bounded by the sea over fifty miles away. 
There is a similar point of view on the divide at Haputale 
Station, and from there to Bandarawella, nearly 2200 feet 
below the summit, the line looks down to the left over a 



CEYLON 33 

grand valley, dotted here and there with paddy-fields and 
coffee plantations. The fungus plague does not seem to 
have crossed the mountains, and some of the old coffee-plants 
still thrive in this neighbourhood. The train arrived at Ban- 
darawella on time, at 6.45 p.m., and we found excellent board 
and beds at the hotel, a branch of the Grand Hotel at Nuwara 
Eliya. 

We made the acquaintance on the train of several pleasant 
young planters who welcomed us as "new chums," and to 
whom our somewhat stale news from " home " still retained 
some freshness, and we heard the complaints against the 
powers that be and the state of markets and labour that are 
•usual with cultivators of the soil in all countries. The ques- 
tion of the railways was an absorbing topic. The projected 
railway to Anuradhapura did not please the planters, although 
they admitted that the opening up of the country would 
stimulate immigration, and result in an increased production 
of rice. But meanwhile the railroad was paying 50 cents a 
day for men and 37 cents a day for women, while the rate 
paid by the planters was only 33 cents and 25 cents respec- 
tively, so that for the time being labour left the estates in 
spite of the importation by the railroad of coolies who would, 
when the road was completed, be an addition to the old hands 
available for tea-planting. The rupee, worth about 16 pence 
sterling, is divided in Ceylon into 100 cents, and there are 
coins as small as ^ cent, equal to ^ of a penny. The plant- 
ers' wage for men is equal to about 5 pence English, or 10 
cents American money, per day. But the Tamils manage to 
supply themselves on this pay with the bushel of rice a month 
that each is estimated to consume as well as the betel to 
chew, the arrack to drink, and the other luxuries and com- 
forts they occasionally indulge in, and to save in a few years 
an amount sufficient to retire in easy affluence to their Indian 
homes. They earn on an average about 9 rupees a month, say 
108 rupees a year, and buy rice from the planters at a fixed 
price of 4 rupees a bushel of 50 pounds. Each coolie buys 
about 20 bushels a year, eats about 12, and barters the other 
8 bushels for his luxuries as he requires them. Women earn 



34 CEYLON 

less money and consume less rice per head. Tea-plucking 
goes on all the year round, but is slack in July, August, and 
September. Tea-pluckers are paid from 1|- to 21 cents per 
pound of leaf. There had been no appreciable change in 
rates paid for labour during the time the rupee had fallen in 
exchange value from 24 pence to 16 pence sterling. When 
work is scarce, or if for other reasons the coolie falls on bad 
times, he has to support life on a sort of millet (kurruhaTi)^ 
the food of the very poorest natives and much cheaper than 
rice. There are stringent laws for the enforcement of 
coolie contracts, but the custom of making advances to the 
coolie on his arrival on an estate often tempts him to bolt 
almost immediately afterward, and is a frequent source of 
loss to the planters. 

For the protection of the growers of cocoa, which with 
Cardamoms, cinchona, and india-rubber is increasing in pro- 
duction, laws have been passed making it necessary for a 
native found in the possession of unripe pods to give a strict 
account as to how he came by them. On some of the coast 
estates near Galle the Singhalese, who, by-the-way, are 
beginning to acquire the opium habit, are employed, but as 
a rule the Tamils are preferred on estates, and the Singhalese 
are employed as artisans and servants. The planters com- 
plain of the poverty of the soil except in some of the 
unhealthy river bottoms. The area devoted to tea seems 
to have reached its maximum, and other products are even 
substituted, in some cases, where tea was grown. The ruling 
price of tea-gardens was given at 100 rupees an acre, and 
from that figure ranged as high as 1000 rupees an acre for 
the best land in the Kelani Valley. 

There is good sport still to be had in hunting elk with 
hounds, which bring the animal to bay and hold him until 
the hunter arrives to despatch him with the knife. Jackal- 
hunting is said to be a good imitation of fox-hunting, but 
the falling off in opportunities for hunting big game was 
lamented ; and one travelling acquaintance stated he had 
paid for a two months' license for elephant-shooting, but had 
never had a shot at one during his whole sixty days. 



CEYLON 35 

To return to the railway question, the real grievance of 
each planter seemed to be that any railway should be planned 
that did not go through his estate to increase its value, and 
to give quick and cheap transport for its produce. But there 
were a few minor points in the management which might be 
easily improved. For example, the kennel provided in most 
of the passenger trains should have some device to supply 
the dogs with water, and there is no good reason why the 
lamps in the passenger coaches should be always dirty and 
generally broken and leaky. However, in spite of all grum- 
bles we found the planters to be most agreeable acquaint- 
ances. But we saw some of a different type during our 
stay on the island. We had read an editorial in one of the 
Ceylon papers pitching into a writer in the Ludgate Maga- 
zine (who was not favourably impressed by the planters), 
and asserting that the planter was " a gentleman of refined 
tastes and great humanity," and we only mention the follow- 
ing exceptions in order that they may be taken to " prove 
the rule." At one of the stations a native waiter came to 
the window with refreshments. A young man with two 
companions, apparently ladies, made some purchases and sent 
the waiter back for change for a rupee, which he held in his 
hand, not giving the waiter the rupee, however, — which 
was probably prudent. The waiter returned with the change, 
handed it over and asked for his rupee. But he asked in 
vain, and in order not to lose what was a large sum to him, 
clung to the footboard while the train moved out of the 
station. Not till the train was going fully ten miles an 
hour was the rupee handed over, and the poor waiter, jump- 
ing on to the line, was thrown on his face and cruelly bruised, 
to the great amusement of the young gentleman and his 
companions. Another case was that of a gentleman who, 
under the influence of drink, ran amok in the Queen's Hotel 
at Kandy. 

We returned from Bandarawella next morning by the 
early train to Nanu-oya and drove up the beautiful road 
which in the course of four and one-half miles rises about 
one thousand feet to Nuwara Eliya — pronounced " Neuralia." 



ae CEYLON 

As a rule the pronunciation of Singhalese names presents no 
difficulty, but the spelling seems to be largely a matter of 
taste, or chance, the recent reforms in the pronunciation and 
orthography of Indian names not having as yet penetrated 
into Ceylon. On the sign of the Grand Hotel the place is 
written "Nuwara Eliya," a placard in the hotel spells it 
" Nuwera Eliya," while the china in the same hotel is marked 
" Newera Eliya." At another place we saw printed " Newara 
Eliya," and some writers spell the first word " Neura " and 
others the latter haK of the compound " EUiya," so you have 
the choice of a great variety and can be individual without 
being at all incorrect. 

On the drive up we passed a morning muster of tea-pluckers 
on the road having their gatherings weighed and their earn- 
ings apportioned. Both English and Indian weights are 
used, the basis of the latter being the tola^ which is 180 grains 
Troy or the weight of a silver rupee ; 80 tolas go to a seer^ 
and 40 seers to a maundy equal to 100 pounds Troy, or some- 
what over 82 pounds avoirdupois. 

Nuwara Eliya, the sanitorium of Ceylon and indeed for 
many portions of southern India, lies on a plain 6200 feet 
above the sea, surrounded by a circle of hills and mountains 
dominated by the rounded summit of Pidurutallagalla, locally 
known as "Pedro," the highest mountain in Ceylon, which 
rises 2000 feet above Nuwara Eliya to an elevation of nearly 
8300 feet. There we had in the middle of February a 
temperature of Qb° to 67° F. in the shade at noon, falling to 
43° during the night ; and in spite of the loan of our travel- 
ling rugs " the scoundrel " suffered severely from the cold, 
as did the other native servants we saw. We stopped at the 
Grand Hotel, a good building, but dirty and full of vermin, 
and we enjoyed there the worst meals placed before us in 
Ceylon. 

We had an eight-mile drive around the Moon Plains the 
first day, and got up at 4.30 the next morning to walk up 
" Pedro " and back before breakfast. Ferguson, Royds, and 
I walked up in an hour and a half, and came down from the 
summit to the hotel in an hour. It was fine and clear at 




Hakgalla Rock, Ceylon. 
Photographed hy Plate, Colombo. 



CEYLON 37 

Nuwara Eliya and we expected to have unfolded before us 
a grand panorama of Ceylon from sea to sea. Our anticipa- 
tions were not fulfilled ; but we had views of the rising sun 
on clouds, infinitely more beautiful than any landscape we 
could have seen from such an elevation. At our feet lay the 
" Royal Plains " dotted over with the indigenous keena trees, 
but immediately below Nuwara Eliya was an iridescent sea 
of surging clouds, extending in every direction, through which 
could be seen like three small islands in the ocean the sum- 
mits of Kirigallapotta and Totapella rising, about thirty miles 
away, above the Horton Plains and to the southwest Adam's 
Peak, the most widely known mountain in Ceylon. The 
early morning sun lighted up the crests of the cloud-waves 
in all the brilliant colours of the rainbow, and the hollows of 
the waves displayed the deeper tints with ever varying shades 
and changes in form. After only an hour on the summit we 
descended from the sublime to the ridiculous, — a breakfast at 
the Grand Hotel. 

We afterward drove six or seven miles to the foot of the 
high cliffs of the precipitous Hakgalla Mountains, where forty 
years ago the government established botanical gardens in 
which trees and plants of the temperate and semi-tropical 
zones are grown in great variety and with marked success. 
The exhibit of tree ferns is particularly fine. The best months 
here for fruits and flowers are April and May. The durian, 
a fruit we were curious to taste, ripens in September. But 
to those not deeply versed in botany there is perhaps a greater 
attraction in the magnificent panorama of the Uva Province 
to be seen from the Hakgalla Gardens, which, being 2000 
feet lower down, afford a closer and better if less extended 
view than we should have had from the top of " Pedro." 

We could have wished for more time to travel about the 
mountains and uplands of Ceylon, but a notice that our ship 
was in port hurried us down to Colombo ; and early one Mon- 
day morning we left the jetty to join P. &. O. Steamship 
Chusan, which had come from Bombay, and was, on account 
of the prevalence of bubonic plague in the latter port, kept 
in strict quarantine. The pilot was the only person permitted 



38 CEYLON 

to leave the ship, and he had to submit to fumigation and 
other unpleasantnesses. We were off at 9.15 a.m., and kept 
in sight of the island the whole day, — passing quite close to 
Galle, whose glory has departed since the breakwater was 
built at Colombo. Tuesday and Wednesday we were run- 
ning against a strong adverse current across the southern 
end of the Bay of Bengal, and Thursday evening at 8.15 
sighted the light on Poeloe Brasse, or Bras Island, near 
Achin (called by the Dutch, Atjeh), at the northern end of 
Sumatra. Friday we were in the Strait of Malacca, and at 
10 P.M. Muca Head light was abeam, and an hour and a 
half later our engines stopped opposite Georgetown in the 
roadstead of Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island, — a small 
island fifteen miles by nine miles off the coast of, and con- 
nected politically with. Province Wellesley in the Malay Pen- 
insula. We promptly went ashore and chartered a double 
rickshaw to see the town. It was too late to visit the 
" Crag," so we went up to the Anglo-Chinese Club and saw 
some Javanese dancing-girls, and other entertainments pro- 
vided in honour of the Chinese New Year. It was a great 
relief to wander about in the cool night air, for the day had 
been one of the hottest on board ship, the thermometer 
registering 88° F. at T p.m. in our cabins. We weighed anchor 
at four in the morning and turned in and had a few hours' 
iSleep before breakfast, after which we went on deck to see 
a fine exhibition of water-spouts between the ship and the 
Malay shore. A heavy rain-cloud was advancing from the 
south, and its northern edge became from time to time 
twisted into funnel-shaped projections which tapered down 
toward the sea. As the revolving cloud approached the 
surface of the water the latter became agitated, and a rotary 
rising movement could be noted. Apparently, the funnel- 
shaped cloud was rotating faster than the cone of water rising 
to meet it, but when these two joined to form a dumb-bell- 
shaped column the water-spout was complete, and grew 
thicker and more opaque as the water was sucked up. 
After moving in the direction of the wind for a few minutes 
the columns broke at the smallest part near its base and the 



CEYLON 39 

water subsided, while the revolving tail of the cloud assumed 
a more spiral shape, and was gradually drawn up and ab- 
sorbed into the mass above. At one time a complete water- 
spout, another forming, and a third dissolving could be seen 
simultaneously. They were so close to the ship that our 
course had to be deflected toward the west to avoid them. 
About a quarter of an hour later we steamed through a 
shower of rain. 

Sunday forenoon we entered Singapore harbour between 
the beacons on Sultan shoal and the lightship on Ajax shoal, 
and past the forts on either side to the wharf opposite the 
island of Pulau Brani, where we made fast before 1.30 p.m. 
Making allowance for the stoppage at Penang, this was just 
six full days for the 1659 miles from Colombo, or under 
280 miles a day. "We found from the hotel runners who 
came to meet the steamer, that all available rooms had been 
engaged by cable from Colombo, so Ferguson, Royds, and I 
decided to take the outgoing packet to Batavia for a short 
run in West Java. Fortunately the difficulties some fellow- 
travellers had experienced owing to our arrival in Colombo 
on a Sunday, had warned us of the necessity of having a sup- 
ply of cash, and we found we had enough in pocket to pay 
our passage and incidental expenses, so we chartered ghar- 
ries and drove our luggage over to the boat of the Konin- 
klijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, which left at a quarter to 
three that afternoon. We barely had time to note that there 
were only two other cabin passengers, that the ship smelt of 
dirty dish rags, and was overrun with ants, before we were off. 

The contract time from Singapore to Tondjong Priok, the 
port of Batavia, is fifty-four hours; but as we were going 
with both wind and current, it only took forty-six hours, and 
coming back with wind and current against us, fifty-two 
hours, to do the 500 miles between the two ports. By mid- 
night we had crossed the equator, and at noon the next day 
were opposite Muntok lighthouse in the Straits of Banda, or 
Rhio Strait, as the channel is sometimes called. A curious 
optical illusion is to be noticed as the land comes in sight on 
either side, Sumatra to the west, and Banda, or Bangka, to 



40 CEYLON 

the east. The immediate foreshore, with its fringe of palms, 
seems to be suspended in the air a few degrees above the 
horizon, which appears underneath, and at what seems a very 
considerable distance. If you cut off from your vision the 
surface of the sea, and only look at the tops of the trees 
growing on the coast, they appear quite naturally to melt 
into the solid background ; but if you look at the sea-line 
again, the coast is suspended in the air. Whether this phe- 
nomenon is due to the dazzling white beach found on parts 
of the coast, or the mangrove trees (baJcoe) growing out of 
and above the sea on their stilt-like roots found at other 
parts, or to both these circumstances or to some others, 
remained unexplained ; but every one remarks it, and some 
think at first that the coast can only be a cloud, but are con- 
vinced, when in the narrower channel the coast is approached 
near enough to cause the illusion to disappear. 

During the night we sighted the light marking the entrance 
to the Straits of Sunda which separate Java from Sumatra, 
and which contained up to the month of August, 1883, the 
island of Krakatoa, the centre of the greatest seismic convul- 
sion and cataclysm of the last century. Throughout Java 
dozens of volcanoes were in a state of violent eruption during 
1883, and great damage was done by them, but Krakatoa 
itself, whose volcanoes had been quiet for two centuries, was 
utterly destroyed, the lighthouses were overwhelmed, the 
coasts were devastated by inrushes of the sea, and in the 
course of four days from 30,000 to 35,000 lives were lost. 
The eruptions continued throughout the year, and the glori- 
ous red sunrises and sunsets in England in the last two 
months of 1883 were attributed by Sir (then Mr.) Norman 
Lockyer and other scientists to the dust thrown out into the 
atmosphere by the volcanoes of Java, over 7000 miles away. 
The same phenomena were noticed in New York 3000 miles 
farther away. After the eruption of La Montague Pelee on 
Martinique, in May, 1902, the correspondent of the London 
" Times " in Jamaica reported magnificent sunsets, due to the 
volcanic dust in the atmosphere, the colour being extra- 
ordinarily rich and beautiful. 



CHAPTER V 



JAVA 



Tandjong Priok and Batavia. The Natives. Dutch Customs. The 
Rijst-tafel. Buitenzorg. Fruits. Mosquitoes. 

OuE course the next morning lay between clusters of small 
islands at the entrance of the great bay, on the northern coast 
of western Java, in which is situated Tandjong Priok. In 
the foreground the white wharf and buildings caught our 
eye, the middle distance was filled in with a mass of green, 
while in the background, forty or fifty miles south, are the 
summits of Gede and Salak, the two volcanoes between which 
the railway runs before the line turns eastward. From 
Salak in the west the great central chain of mountains, which 
separates the northern and southern coasts, continues over 
four hundred miles as the crow flies to Smeroe in the east, 
the highest peak in Java. The whole island is stated to be 
622 miles at its greatest length, and only 121 miles at its 
greatest breadth. 

We came by train from the wharf to the Old Town Station, 
Batavia, in eighteen minutes, with our luggage which passed 
the customs without being opened, and we found ourselves 
at one o'clock outside the Bank on the Kali Besar, the ther- 
mometer standing at 90° F. in the shade. We replenished our 
depleted exchequers and provided ourselves with sufficient 
funds to last until our return to Batavia, as we were informed 
that no means of getting remittances, except by sending money 
in a registered letter, existed in the interior. The coinage is of 
the same denominations as in Holland. The gulden, guilder, 
or florin, called by the natives roepia, of one hundred cents 
(worth twenty pence English or twelve to a pound sterling), 

41 



42 JAVA 

and the rijksdaalder of two and one-half guilders are the silver 
coins ; and there are notes of the Java Bank for larger sums. 
We found it useful to keep in mind the meaning of stuiverje 
(one-twentieth guilder), dubbeltje (one-tenth guilder), and 
kwartje (one-fourth guilder). From the Bank we went to the 
StadJiuis to get our permit to remain on the island and to visit 
the interior. On payment of one and one-half guilders each 
we received from the resident our passports to visit any part 
of Batavia and the Preanger Regencies. After a walk round 
the Old Town with its merchants' offices and " godowns " (so 
called from the Malay word gadong^ which means a ware- 
house), we went on to Weltevreden, where the hotels and 
clubs are all situated and the business men of Batavia live. 
There were no rooms to be had at the Grand Hotel Java, to 
which we had been recommended, so we went to the Hotel 
des Indes, a large one-storey structure built around three sides 
of a square. After depositing our travelling gear we set out 
to engage a guide and interpreter, and found one with good 
credentials who promised to call for us early the following 
morning. Residents pay about ten guilders a month for an 
interpreter's services, strangers about three times as much, 
or a guilder a day. This having been attended to, we took a 
carriage for a drive around the New Town and suburbs. In 
driving you pass on the left as in England, but the tramcars 
run on the right-hand side of the road and pass to the right. 
Our conveyance was a two wheel dos-a-dos (sado) drawn by 
a wiry pony. 

In front of the Hotel des Indes is the canal (^goenoeng sahri) 
which joins Weltevreden to the sea, and has numerous 
branches. The canals, the people, the language you hear, 
and the architecture of the dwelling-houses convey the im- 
pression of some such Dutch town as Nymegen or Arnhem ; 
but a closer inspection dispels the illusion and discovers the 
fact that the canals swarm with natives who use them indis- 
criminately for washing clothes, for bathing, and as latrines. 

The natives in West Java are mostly of the Sundanese 
branch of the Malay inhabitants, and are a better Malay 
type than the Madurese, or the more numerous and more 



JAVA 43 

civilised Javanese of Mid-Java. All the three branches 
are of a yellowish-brown colour, — the men without beards, 
— and are all nominally Mohammedans. Each branch speaks 
a separate dialect ; but Europeans communicate with them 
in a dialect called Low Malay. The natives are better-look- 
ing than those of Ceylon, and have none of the prudery of 
the Singhalese, the Chinese, or the Malays of the Straits 
Settlements. In the canals and streams here the native men 
and women bathe together, their own dark skins being the 
only substitute for clothes. 

The Dutch residents in Java lose much of their native 
modesty, and afford a striking contrast with their country- 
folk in Holland. From early morn until it is time to dress 
for the customary drive, between five and seven, or for the 
calling hour, which is the hour before the eight o'clock din- 
ner, the costume of the Dutch ladies in their own houses or 
in the hotels consists of a petticoat (sarong') and jacket 
(hahaja^ sahaja in Sumatra), with a pair of loose straw san- 
dals. The petticoat reaches just below the knee, and the 
jacket, fastened by a couple of buttons, just overlaps the top 
of the petticoat. One is somewhat startled at the exhibition 
of bare white legs at the midday meal (rijsttafeT) in the 
hotel, and even more so by the display of the exuberant 
charms of the portly matrons who, in these scanty garments, 
loll about the hotel veranda or recline there on the long cane 
or bamboo lounges. 

We drove past Fort Prins Hendrik, through Waterloo- 
plein, with its public buildings and monuments, and across 
the Koningsplein, bordered by tamarind trees, at the north- 
ern side of which is the palace of the governor-general. 
Then through one of the market-places (passer) and to a 
European shop (toko) to purchase a few necessities. At din- 
ner we missed the punkah and the evening dress of the guests 
which were invariably associated with the evening meal in 
the towns of Ceylon and on board ship. We noted the 
absence of bread, and the general inferiority of the cooking, 
which, however, we found was even worse at Buitenzorg and 
farther inland. We now began to appreciate the midday 



44 JAVA 

rijsttafel, with which we first became acquainted on the 
steamer coming from Singapore. It is a variation upon the 
Indian curry, and, like it, is a vehicle for the consumption of 
large quantities of boiled rice. It is usually served in a soup- 
plate. This is filled with rice, and then various dishes of 
fish, flesh, and fowl, generally stewed, are passed, and you 
help yourself to a spoohful or so of each, or of such as you 
desire, and plant it somewhere on the plate of rice. The 
edge of the plate is utilised for chutneys and other relishes, 
and your whole meal is before you. At dinner, as at break- 
fast, coffee is served in the form of a strong, cold extract, 
made by percolating cold water through pressed ground 
coffee. A teaspoonful or so is poured into the bottom of the 
cup, which is filled up with hot milk or boiling water. Do 
not try to drink it neat ! Butter, only to be had in small 
quantities, is made by first boiling, then skimming, the 
milk. 

We also learned the use, before going to bed, of the mos- 
quito-broom, — a small bundle of reeds like a birch, to brush 
the troublesome insects out of the mosquito-netting, and slay 
them on the walls. Each bed is provided with a " Dutch 
wife," — a long bolster placed down the centre of the bed to 
insure coolness when two people occupy it. In the early 
morning we found our way in pyjamas along the hotel 
veranda and across the courtyard to the bath-rooms for our 
morning bath (mandi). A tank of cold water, with a bucket 
to dip it out and pour it over one's head, were the only con- 
veniences. The guests must provide their own soap and bath 
towels, and these cold baths, which it is customary to take 
twice daily, might, we thought, not be very agreeable to 
those accustomed to warm or hot baths. Before leaving we 
sent for the washman (toekan menatoe) and left with him our 
soiled linen, which had accumulated since we left Colombo, 
to be ready against our return. 

It was a relief to get away from hot and evil-smelling 
Batavia, which has, moreover, a bad reputation for unhealthi- 
ness. It is always hot there, the minimum mean daily tem- 
perature recorded being over QQ° F. and the maximum over 




M 



> 



JAVA 45 

96° F. The New Town, Weltevreden, is an improvement on 
Old Batavia, but that is all that can be said for it. How- 
ever, the climate has less terrors for the traveller if care is 
taken to avoid chills, and direct exposure to the sun, than to 
those who are enervated by a more prolonged residence. 

Our guide failed to turn up and we afterward heard he 
had gone on a drunken spree and been locked up, so we 
purchased a Malay vocabulary, and with this and the very 
useful "Guide to the Dutch East Indies" issued by the 
Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, and published in Eng- 
lish, we took an early train for Buitenzorg. On the way we 
inquired for letters at the post office (kantor pos)^ and then 
stopped at the telegraph office (kantor kawah} to send a wire 
to the Hotel Bellevue at Buitenzorg to reserve us rooms at 
the back of the house, which we were informed afforded a 
famous view of the valley of the Tjiliwong and the slopes 
of the Salak Mountains. The railway runs almost due south, 
mostly through rice fields Qsawah), but there are some sugar- 
cane plantations and stretches of the long coarse alang-alang 
grass so largely used in the houses of the natives. 

Buitenzorg lies between 800 to 900 feet above the sea 
in the foothills of the mountainous portion of Java and is 
famous for its unrivalled Botanical Gardens, and notorious 
for its swarms of mosquitoes and its regular daily rainfall. 
If you fail to get a soaking in the early morning, you can 
count upon it in the afternoon. It is only an hour and a 
quarter from Weltevreden, so we had breakfast at the Hotel 
Bellevue and spent most of the day in the Gardens, the 
southern entrance to which is just across the road. 

Not far from this entrance is a monument to the first wife 
of Raffles, the great Englishman whose name is a household 
word from Penang to Java and who governed Java from 
its capture by the British in September 1811 until it was 
returned to the Dutch in March 1816, in accordance with 
the Convention of London confirmed in 1815. Almost every 
tree and plant of the tropical and semi-tropical zones, both 
those that are indigenous to Java as well as those that had 
to be imported, are to be found here arranged in family 



46 JAVA 

groups and separated by roads lined with, magnificent shade 
trees among which the rasamala, rising over 100 feet before 
it breaks into branches, is prominent. Across a lake one 
branch of which is covered with the great round leaves 
with upturned edges of the Victoria regia in full flower, and 
one branch with lotuses, rises the palace of the governor- 
general, facing another lake and a plain, from which starts 
the old road to Batavia. The Tjiliwong (tji meaning river 
in Sundanese, tali in Javanese) was the eastern boundary 
of the Gardens, but the latter have been recently extended 
by taking in land on the other bank of the river. From the 
Gardens a fine view is to be had of the Gedeh mountain 
chain and the volcano Gede, the lip of whose crater rises 
9715 feet above the sea. 

At the time of our visit, about the 1st of March, the fruits 
in season that were novelties to us included the ramhoetan 
(or "hairy fruit"), the size of a turkey's Qgg^ covered with 
string-like appendages to the leathery rind, which on being 
cut discloses the fruit. The latter is of the colour and 
consistency of the white of a hard-boiled plover's egg and 
has a somewhat similar taste, and surrounds a hard kernel 
like a large peanut which can be eaten when roasted. 
Another new fruit was the doekoe^ with the appearance of 
an unripe apricot, whose skin when ripe can be squeezed 
open like a muscat grape, the pulp being not unlike that of 
the ramhoetan. The durian^ of the size of a large cocoanut 
with a tough, thick, fibrous, exterior covered with spike-like 
excrescences, the interior fruit in pink juicy lobes containing 
large green stones, was also ripe ; and also the nangka, a fruit 
of the same family as the durian. Bananas, cocoanuts, and 
mangosteens were also in season, and in the market we found 
a dubheltje (value two pence) would buy us one durian or 
fifteen bananas or fifty mangosteens (manjes) or one hundred 
and fifty doekoes. It would be curious to know how many 
a native would get for the same money. Probably six to 
ten times the number. 

We had our first durian here. There is a suspicion attached 
to every durian from the time it comes from the tree until 



JAVA 47 

the moment it is eaten — that it is in an advanced stage of 
putrefaction. When it is cut into by a heavy blow of an 
axe or gaulok, the suspicion is changed to a certainty; for 
probably no object of its size in nature has a greater variety 
of evil smells than a ripe durian. You will distinctly dis- 
tinguish the smell of escaping gas, of rotten eggs, of open 
drains, of carrion. In fact the fruit smells putrid and looks 
uninviting. When you taste it, you may not like it at first, 
but one thing always happens, you lose or forget the smell. 
It has, however, a taste that grows on one, perhaps because 
it is so complex as to make it possible for each one to detect 
some favourite flavour. At any rate there is a reminiscence 
of the peach, the pear, the grape, and especially the mango. 

We strolled over to Batoe Toolis before dinner to enjoy 
the river scenery and to look at the curious bamboo bridge 
of a single arch which spans the main channel. 

That night at Buitenzorg will ever be memorable to us 
on account of the mosquitoes. Neither in the paddy-fields 
of Japan nor in the swamps of New Jersey can such swarms 
be seen as invaded the hotel and made life a burden to us. 
The veranda of the hotel is lit by oil lamps suspended in 
bowls, and the maimed insects burnt by the light filled the 
bowls in a couple of hours to the depth of over four inches 
while the large round tables under each lamp were covered 
with the dead and dying in a layer in places an inch thick. 
All those escaping the flames seemed to devote themselves 
to us, to our immediate and subsequent discomfort. The 
places most vulnerable to their attacks were, we discovered, 
our black socks just above the shoes and the margin around 
our hats. 

We found we could get on very well in English, French, 
or German with the Dutchmen we met, and most of the offi- 
cials speak very good English, but it was absolutely necessary 
to have recourse to our Malay vocabulary in communicating 
with the natives, who are not permitted to learn Dutch. 
When the vocabulary failed us, we found the natives quick to 
understand pantomime, and we succeeded in getting much 
amusement as well as whatever we needed from our servants 



48 JAVA 

and drivers. We first had to learn how to pronounce the 
native words as written, and for this purpose the five vowels 
are pronounced as in French and are merely lengthened by 
being doubled, eu like eu in French ; ui like oeu in French ; 
ei or ij like ei in the English veil ; oe like oo in cuckoo ; and 
au or ou like ow in how. Then we committed to memory 
the numerals, — satoe meaning one or the indefinite parti- 
cle, and so on ; and a few words like sapada (^spada), waiter 
or " boy " ; ajer panas, warm water ; ka, to, go to, or go 

to the ; poeloe (or nusa)^ island; goenoeng^ mountain; 

'planTci or djoelie, palanquin ; dessa, village ; kawa, crater ; 
telaga (or sitoe)^ lake ; and so on. 



CHAPTER VI 

JAVA 

Sindanglaija. The Javanese and their Country. How the Dutch govern 
Java. Chinese Contractors. Social Equality of Half-castes. 
Tobacco. Regulation of Coolies. Java Tea. Dutch Jealousy. 
"India." By Road and Rail to Garoet. Lake Bagendit. Crater 
of Papandajan. Ferns and Orchids. Back to Batavia. 

Feom Buitenzorg we started early in the morning in pony- 
traps wliicli we had engaged the night before, for Sindang- 
laija, twenty -two and one-half miles toward the southeast over 
a steep road. Two of us went in one trap and the other with 
the luggage occupied the second, each trap having three 
ponies to pull it. The road is good to Gadok, which we reached 
at a good pace, but from there it is a characteristic Javanese 
road covered with loose, round, unbroken stones and pebbles 
from the streams, with a track beaten smooth by the bare feet 
of the thousands of coolies who carry, balanced on short 
poles, huge baskets of maize, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, onions, 
carrots, cabbages, peanuts, doekoes, cocoanuts, bananas and 
durians from the mountains down to the railway. 

The native women wear sarongs fastened up under the 
arm-pits or around the waist, and some of them have kahajas. 
The men, except the poorest ones who wear loin-cloths only, 
wear trousers cut off at the knees, large umbrella-shaped 
straw hats, and a belt to which is hung a heavy hanger 
{gaulok or parang^ like the Spanish- American machete, some- 
times carried without a sheath. The blades are twelve to 
eighteen inches long, about two inches wide, and one-fourth 
to three-eighths of an inch thick at the back, and are ground 
very sharp. A few wear straw or leather sandals, but never 
boots or shoes. Those returning from the valleys bring up 
£ 49 



50 JAVA 

rice, alang-alang grass for making thatch, and mats, and 
petroleum in sixty-five pound cans, two to a case. These 
cans come from the United States and originally contained 
American oil, but are repeatedly refilled with Sumatra oil 
from Lankat. As we pass, the women step aside, and with 
one foot in the ditch kneel on the other knee until we go by, 
while the men halt and hold their hats in their hands. The 
children wear kabajas or stomach-bands only. Infants are 
carried by the women slung over the hips by a cotton scarf 
(^slendong') in a position convenient for them to take the 
breast. 

We had an hour and a quarter's walk while two coolies to 
each trap assisted the ponies by pushing up the stage to the 
top of the range dividing the Batavia Residency from the 
Preanger Regencies. Here is a fence with a gate, and no 
native may pass through it from one province to another 
without a passport. Down the hill on the other side the 
coolies used heavy bamboo poles wedged against the wheels 
as brakes. It took us just over four and one-half hours from 
Buitenzorg to the Gezondheids-Etablissement, Sindanglaija, 
and we had seen no European on the way. We ordered traps 
to take us to Tjiandjoer the following morning, and tele- 
graphed to Garoet for rooms and for traps to meet the train 
in the evening, and then were ready to do justice to the mid- 
day "rice-table." Sindanglaija lies 3500 feet above the sea 
in a coffee- and tea-planting district. Here we met a govern- 
ment official who gave us many interesting details about the 
country. 

Java runs in its main length east and west, only occupying 
about three degrees of latitude from north to south. With 
Madura, an island on the north coast, which is always in- 
cluded, Java covers over 50,000 square miles and contains 
over twenty-six million inhabitants, which have increased 
from about six millions in 1810, and continue to increase ; 
and it is the most densely populated and most cultivated and 
productive island situated anywhere in the tropics. It has 
double the area of Ceylon, but over seven times its popula- 
tion. The natives are governed under a system practically 



JAVA 51 

the same as was established by Raffles in 1814, during the 
time the English occupied Java " under which the original 
constitution of the villages was utilised, and the superintend- 
ence and responsibility continued in the hands of the village 
chiefs." These headmen are elected from the local descend- 
ants of the ruling native families, are held in the greatest 
reverence and respect by the natives, and are under native 
regents with each of whom is associated a European assist- 
ant-resident, or " elder brother," who " advises " and controls 
every official action of the regent, and through him of the 
headmen, both of whom hold office only at the pleasure of 
the government. Above the assistant-residents are twenty- 
two residents, who are in turn subordinate to the governor- 
general. The natives are ruled by a mild despotism which 
controls them at every point. They are forbidden to sell 
their land to any but their own countrymen ; they are for- 
bidden to go out of their own residency without a special 
permit ; they are forbidden to grow certain crops ; and there 
are even sumptuary laws regulating what they may wear. 
But in spite of all this, combined with heavy taxes and cer- 
tain labour enforced by the State, they seem to be happy and 
contented and lead a rather happy-go-lucky, lazy life. The 
native's house, a wooden frame-work, raised from the ground 
on stones, with walls of mats and a thatched roof, costs about 
eight guilders, — say, thirteen shillings and four pence ster- 
ling, — which he can clear in a month's work. A coolie can 
earn thirty cents, — say, sixpence a day, — and it is said that 
the more thrifty can live on that amount per head per month. 
A premium is paid to those who work for more than ten consec- 
utive days. Once in possession of his own house and a few 
sago trees and he is a man of independent position, for 
three of these trees will furnish a year's food to a man at 
the cost of a day's labour for each tree to collect the pith. 
To indulge in luxuries and gambling and to pay his taxes 
he must do extra work, and it is here that the Chinese step 
in. 

If you have a tea-garden to lay out on virgin soil or in 
place of cinchona, if you have a house to build or a road to 



52 JAVA 

make, the cheapest if not the only way to get the work 
promptly done is to call in a Chinese contractor. Both here 
and in the Malay peninsula the Chinaman is unrivalled as 
a coolie driver. He pays the best wages and gets most work 
out of the natives, but he institutes an elaborate truck sys- 
tem, and what he does not get back in exchange for food and 
merchandise, he secures by gambling devices. 

Forced labour to the extent of one day a week was still 
required from the natives for the cultivation of coffee, but 
has been abolished for other products. 

Less than three million acres in Java are owned by 
Europeans and Chinese ; the government is owner of the rest 
of the land. Europeans are governed by Dutch law and 
through separate courts. The total number of Europeans 
is under fifty thousand, and this number includes half-castes 
who are classed as Europeans, and have all their privileges 
and immunities. This phase of life in the Dutch Indies is 
a matter of great astonishment to Englishmen, who are 
accustomed to look upon Eurasians as socially below the 
best natives. But under the Dutch laws the progeny of 
the numerous marriages between white men and native 
women, and the less common but not unknown marriages 
between white women and native men, are considered not 
only politically but socially the equals of children of unmixed 
white blood. And this equality extends to illegitimate off- 
spring, when one of the parents is white and gives a certifi- 
cate of parentage. Suppose a half-caste marries a native, 
the children would still be classed as " Europeans," so that 
this phrase covers a variety of mixtures, races, and colours. 
All " European " males between the ages of sixteen and forty- 
five are, with very few official exceptions, obliged to be 
enrolled in the sehutterij, — the local militia formed for pur- 
poses of defence from outside attack and protection against 
any possible native rising. Foreigners resident in the island 
over six months are liable to be called upon to bear arms. 

Manila cigars are the favourite smoke for Europeans in 
Java, and very good brands of them can be bought in Batavia. 
The beautiful leaf tobacco shipped from the Dutch Indies to 



JAVA 53 

Holland, and so largely used in the United States for cigar 
wrappers, has absolutely no flavour, and taken alone is use- 
less to smokers even in a pipe. Its cultivation is confined 
to well-defined districts, and leaf grown just outside the 
limits, although on apparently similar soil and conditions, 
will not burn or will have some other defect which renders it 
worthless. At the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the Florida- 
grown Sumatra tobacco received twenty points of merit 
against eighteen points awarded to the tobacco submitted from 
Sumatra, so that as the culture increases in the United States 
Sumatra may lose a good customer. In British North Borneo 
tobacco is now grown possessing a certain amount of flavour, 
and therefore superior to the Sumatra tobacco ; and it is 
reported that parcels of it sold at the Amsterdam spring 
sales of 1902 "at the highest average price," — five shillings 
per pound. 

The Chinese coolies and the Klings, or Tamils, from Brit- 
ish India, who are imported to work the Sumatra tobacco or 
coffee estates, are subject to special laws and regulations. 
They are bound for three years under an advance of fifty 
or more Mexican dollars, and must remain up to a limit of 
four years, unless they keep out of debt. The estates are 
worked on shares, and each coolie is given 850 pounds 
of rice per annum. They can barter any surplus above 
their requirements, and gambling is permitted. If a coolie 
misbehaves, the master has only to send a letter to the gov- 
ernor, and without further investigation an order is issued 
to punish the coolie, perhaps by flogging. If a coolie attacks 
a European with any weapon, even a stick, the latter is, in 
the eyes of the law, justified in shooting down the former. 
But while the government is quick to punish, it endeavours 
to control the chastisement of the coolie by the planters. 
One of the latter caught a gharry driver in the act of steal- 
ing a piece of his luggage, and gave the man a severe beat- 
ing with his cane. The planter was summoned, and fined 
five dollars, but was informed by the judge that if he had, 
after beating the man, handed him over to the police, he 
would not have been liable to be either summoned or fined. 



54 JAVA 

The natives of Java are experts in irrigation, and the 
government works are limited to bringing the water into 
a given district, leaving the details of ditches and distribu- 
tion to the natives under their own headmen. 

Most of the Javanese tea estates, although nominally owned 
by the Dutch, are controlled by English merchants in Singa- 
pore. It is sold in bulk as Java tea in London, but is used 
as Ceylon tea, in blends, and is seldom or never sold retail in 
London under its proper name. 

The Dutch are jealous and suspicious of foreigners living 
in their East Indian possessions, and there are many restric- 
tions imposed upon them. Whether these are the same on 
all the islands is uncertain ; but these restrictions are carried 
to curious extremes ; as, for example, although native pros- 
titution is entirely unregulated in Sumatra, no European 
prostitute is permitted to dwell on the island. 

The use of the word "India" was somewhat confusing to 
us until we got to know that in the mouth of a Dutchman it 
always meant the Dutch East Indies. Our friend further 
told us that the officials who come out from Holland are 
expected to remain in the Service for ten years before going 
home on leave, and most of them try to avoid returning to 
" India " after having served this term. 

We left Sindanglaija in the morning for Garoet, driving 
over a fairly good road down the valley to the train at Tjiand- 
joer. At various places coming down, sheds are erected across 
the road as rain shelters, to protect the cart-loads of mer- 
chandise during the frequent torrential showers. Between 
Tjiandjoer and Bandoeng the railway line crosses the Tjiso- 
kan by a fine viaduct, from which good views of the river 
valley, including a waterfall to the right, are to be had. At 
the station buffet, Bandoeng, we had the choice of a rijsttafel 
or " a biefstuk lunch " for a guilder and a half, and the pro- 
prietor announces that those who buy drinks can have " ice 
free." The country is beautiful all the way to Garoet, wild 
in parts, and full of game, from snipe to tigers, and the line 
ascends some of the mountain slopes at as steep a grade as 
one in forty. In other places the country is closely culti- 



JAVA 55 

vated, most strikingly so in the Plains of Leles, terraced with 
paddy-fields, from which rises the conical Groenong Kalaidon, 
— a mountain with an elevation of over four thousand feet above 
the sea, cultivated to its very summit. We reached Garoet at 
3 P.M., and found pony-carts (karren^ karrelje, or karharpeer') 
to drive us, in three-quarters of an hour, to Lake Bagendit, — a 
pretty mountain lake, thick in parts with large, peony-like 
water-lilies. A covered platform with chairs was placed for 
us over three dug-out canoes (^praics or prahas'), and we were 
thus lazily paddled about, and charged exorbitantly for the 
pleasure. 

We were made very comfortable for the night at the 
Hotel Van Horck at Garoet, and at 4.30 the next morning 
were awakened to leave at quarter past 5 for the crater of 
Papandajan. We had ordered carts the previous night, as 
well as some tiffin to take with us, to be consumed at the 
top. We found the road very good, and arrived shortly 
after 7 o'clock at Tjiseroepan. Here we engaged two ponies 
and a djoelie, the latter a chair on a platform, supporting a cov- 
ered top, carried on two bamboo poles. Four coolies acted 
as bearers, with two in reserve to take turn about, and the 
rocking and springing motion gave the very closest imitation 
of an English Channel boat in a choppy sea that can possibly 
be imagined. In addition to the six bearers there was a 
coolie to lead each pony, a carrier for our lunch, and a guide, 
who was in command, so that our retinue was composed of 
ten men. There is a fair trail up to the crater ; but the log 
and bamboo bridges over the small streams are out of repair, 
and one of the ponies stumbled through a hole in one, throw- 
ing his rider. Fortunately, neither man nor beast received 
anything worse than a shaking. The crater of the Papan- 
dajan is over 8500 feet above the sea, and 7500 feet above 
Tjiseroepan, and the walls rise another 900 feet above the 
bottom of the crater, which is dotted over with solfataras, 
some emitting, with a deafening noise, jets of steam, some sul- 
phur vapours, some hot water, and some boiling mud. It is 
a weird, uncanny place, and after we had been carefully 
guided past the dangerous spots where the crust is thin, and 



56 JAVA 

collected specimens of the sulphur deposits, we settled down 
in a sheltered spot for tiffin. At our feet was a vent-hole of 
boiling water ; but the temperature of the air at 10 a.m. was 
only 61° F., and the naked coolies squatted in a circle around 
us shivering with cold. We had six hard-boiled eggs left 
over to give to the coolies, but the difficulty presented itself 
of making a fair allotment. We conveyed to them in panto- 
mime that we intended to give them the eggs, showed them 
the number, and indicated where we would place them, and 
they gathered in a circle round the spot to discuss the situa- 
tion and solve the problem of dividing six by ten. We 
expected to see some form of settling the matter by lot, but 
after a pow-wow of some minutes a word was given as the 
signal for a general scramble for the spoils, with the result 
that one man captured three, another two, and a third one 

egg- 
On the way up we passed by coffee plantations, and saw 
specimens of the keena (or kina) trees common at Nuwara 
Eliya in Ceylon, but the most remarkable feature in the 
heavily wooded mountain-side is the exceptionally fine tree- 
ferns which abound here, and the great variety and pro- 
fusion of orchids to be found on the forest trees. It is a 
glorious field for a botanist on the lower slopes. What with 
the orchids, the curious " fly-traps," and other rare and beau- 
tiful flowers to be gathered, the whole neighbourhood is 
a perfect natural museum of tropical vegetation. 

We left the crater at 10.45 and got back to Tjiseroepan at 
1 P.M. In the well-kept villages on the road back to Garoet, 
which we reached in an hour and a quarter, just before the 
afternoon rain, the houses are surrounded by small gardens, 
fenced in with bamboo poles painted in black and white 
stripes, and the roofs generally have the principal end rafters 
extended beyond the ridge-pole so as to form an X or St. 
Andrew's cross. The few carts we met were drawn or 
pushed by men, two usually pulling in front and two behind 
pushing. But cases as big as a grand piano, and as heavy, 
are carried over the mountain roads by coolies, and as many 
as twelve of them may be seen struggling under the heavy 



JAVA 57 

bamboo poles to which some unwieldy bale or box is hung. 
We strolled about Garoet during the afternoon, and sat on 
our veranda during the evening listening to the cicadse and 
watching the fireflies, more brilliant and numerous than any 
of us had ever seen elsewhere, although Kandy is a good 
second in the matter of these luminous insects. 

The next morning we were at the railway station to catch 
the early train to Bandoeng, but when the office opened no 
money was in the till to give us change, or for any other 
purpose. We had to wait until a sufficient amount had been 
collected by the sale of tickets to the coolies and market- 
gardeners journeying with us before we could get our own 
tickets, and we received the change due us in handsful of 
copper coins. 

In returning to Batavia we felt keen regret that the time 
at our disposal did not permit a visit to the ancient Hindu 
monuments scattered over Mid -Java, particularly the remark- 
able ruins of Boro Boedoer, with its hundreds of sculptured 
bas-reliefs and statues dating from the ninth century; the 
famous scenery on the road to it between Djokja Karta and 
Amba Rawa, including the Valley of Kedoe; and the Bram- 
banan Tjandis, or temples. We should also have liked to 
have explored the volcanic region of East Java, where Sme- 
roe (or Semeru), the highest volcano in the island, rises over 
12,000 feet above the sea, and then to have returned to Batavia 
by steamer. But travelling is slow in Java, even by the 
railroads, of which there are nearly 1000 miles in the coun- 
try, as they only run trains in the daytime, and it takes two 
full days, twenty-five hours' actual travelling, by express 
train to cover the 566 miles between Batavia and Soerabaya, 
and another day of ten hours in the train to reach the 
eastern terminus of the railway at Panaroekan, 175 miles 
farther. 

However, we began our return journey through the Plain 
of Leles and the level plain between Tjitjalengka and Gedeh- 
bajeh, all planted with rice, and arrived at Bandoeng, where 
we intended to spend the night at the Hotel Homanns, which 
had been highly recommended ; but no accommodation was 



58 JAVA 

to be had there or elsewhere in the town, owing to a great 
meeting of sugar planters which was in session. Special 
trains were bringing them in, and the resident, wearing 
a cap with a gold band, and having a golden umbrella held 
over him, as well as the assistant-resident with silver band 
on his cap, was at the station to receive the notabilities. One 
of these was a smiling and prosperous Chinaman, who seemed 
to stand very well with the others. We had a stroll around 
Bandoeng, and in the market-place bought some specimens 
of the " cursed Malayan crease " (^creese, kris, or Jcriss'), — the 
long daggers with ornamental hilts and wavy blades, pointed 
and double edged, — a sample of the common gauloJc, and a 
couple of the slightly curved knives about seven inches long, 
in wooden sheaths tipped with ivory, which the Javanese 
ladies are said to use on faithless lovers and husbands. Re- 
fused at Bandoeng, we took a train for Soekaboemi, the cen- 
tre of the tea-planting industry, sixty miles farther on, and 
put up there at the Victoria. From time to time we noticed 
along the roadside great black clusters hanging to the limbs 
of the trees, looking at first sight like fruit of abnormal size 
and shape. Closer inspection showed them to be kalongs 
(or flying foxes), — big, fruit-eating bats, hanging head 
downward, asleep. 

The natives are fond of playing fan-tan and f ox-and-geese ; 
and the small boys are devoted to games with marbles. In- 
stead of playing the marble from the hollow of the right 
forefinger by a spring of the right thumb, the marble is held 
between the tips of the left forefinger and thumb and flicked 
out by the right forefinger sprung from the top of the right 
thumb. 

We paid .a visit to the local market at Soekaboemi before 
dinner ; and the next morning we took the train to Batavia 
to be on the spot to catch the following day's steamer. Half- 
way between Soekaboemi and Buitenzorg, where the railway 
changes its direction from an east-and-west to a north-and- 
south line, the top of the grade in the valley between the 
Gedeh and Salak is reached near a station called Tjijoeroeg 
in a tea and coffee growing district, and from the summit 



JAVA 59 

the line runs down a very pretty valley to Buitenzorg and 
thence down the valley of the Liwoeng to Batavia. All the 
way from Garoet the railway station buildings are very good. 
We found German mineral water, Swedish matches, English 
biscuits, and American petroleum even where other European 
luxuries were unknown. Outside of the suburbs of Batavia 
only water-buffaloes are used for agricultural purposes, never 
horses as far as we saw. 

We left Tandjong Priok on Tuesday morning at 9 and ar- 
rived Thursday afternoon at 1.15 at Singapore. It is no fault 
of the steamship company if their passengers go hungry. 
Early tea is served in your cabin when you are awakened, 
breakfast at 9, beef -tea and biscuits at 10.30, luncheon at 
noon, tea at 4, and dinner, including coffee and liqueurs, at 
7, and you can wind up with supper if you like. 

We met on the steamer some residents of Sumatra who, in 
common with the Dutch we met in Java, were of the opinion 
that the war with the natives in Atchin (or Acheen) which 
has been going on since 1880, or with a brief interval since 
1873, could be brought to an end in a few months by a general 
honest and strong enough to be free from the influence of the 
ring of officials and contractors whose profitable affairs depend 
upon the continuance of the fighting. 



CHAPTER VII 

SINGAPOEE 

Sir Thomas Raffles. The Chinese Paradise. The Straits Settlements. 
The Malay Language. First Impressions. Club Temperance. 

Fruit. Johor. Sampans. Tin Hill. Fast Coaling. Money. 
Justice. Servants. Malay Street. " The Liberator of the Philip- 
pines." The Effect of Climate on Morals. The Charm of the East. 

Singapore is interesting geograpliically, historically, polit- 
ically, and commercially : but topographically there is little 
to claim a traveller's attention. It is an island fourteen miles 
in its widest part north to south and about twice this width 
east to west, situated about eighty miles north of the equator 
off the southernmost point of Asia and separated from the 
Malay peninsula on the mainland by the Johor (or Johore) 
Strait, which varies from less than a mile up to two miles 
wide. The landing wharves are near the southern extremity 
of the island and the town extends from them in a north- 
east direction. The conception of its importance, the meas- 
ures taken to secure it for the Empire, and the purchase of it 
from the Sultan of Johor were entirely due to the energy 
and far-sightedness of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, whose 
statue stands in the middle of Raffles Plain on the Esplanade 
(Padang Besar). Londoners owe a special debt of gratitude 
to Raffles, who, a year before his death, founded, with Sir 
Humphry Davy, the " Zoo." There is a monument to him 
in Westminster Abbey with the following inscription on the 
pedestal : — 

"To the memory of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, LL.D., F.R.S., 
Lieutenant Governor of Java and first president of the Zoological 
Society of London, born 1781, died 1826. Selected at an early age to 
conduct the Government of the British Conquests in the Indian Ocean, 

60 



SINGAPORE 61 

by -wisdom, vigoxir and philanthropy he raised Java to happiness and 
prosperity unknown under former rulers. After the surrender of that 
Island to the Dutch and during his Government in Sumatra he founded 
an emporium at Singapore, where in establishing freedom of person as 
the right of the soil, and freedoni of trade as the right of the Port, he 
secured to the British flag the maritime superiority of the Eastern Seas ; 
ardently attached to science he laboured successfully to add to the 
knowledge and enrich the museums of his native land; in promoting 
the welfare of the people committed to his charge, he sought the good of 
his country and the glory of God." 

This epitaph, has the rare characteristic of stating the truth 
and nothing but the truth. The whole truth is perhaps only 
to be found in Egerton's " Life of Sir Stamford Raffles." 

Beginning with a handful of inhabitants, the population of 
Singapore rose above 10,000 shortly after it was annexed by 
the British in 1819, and is now close on to 200,000. From 
the first it took on the character of a Chinese colony, and in 
Singapore, as indeed throughout the Straits Settlements, the 
Chinese are more numerous than the native Malays. If there 
is a Chinese terrestrial paradise, this is where it is to be found. 
Amongst them it is an accepted fiction that the territory of 
the Straits Settlements is part of China, and a place where 
good Confucians may pass their lives and leave their bones. 
And under the equitable rule of Great Britain the Chinese 
are here free to develop their many good qualities and abili- 
ties, and to demonstrate how readily they can adapt them- 
selves to modern conditions so as to become desirable citizens, 
to take the foremost rank as business men, and in the lowest 
classes to do the best work at the lowest prices. The Chinese 
coolie as at home and elsewhere abroad is hard-working, 
patient, sober, and not unintelligent, although the majority 
of the Singapore coolies are from Amoy or the Island of 
Hainan, and are not so clever as those of Canton ; and their 
merchants are keen competitors who are satisfied with small 
profits, and who live up to their contracts. As in Java, the 
Chinese know best how to get the most work out of the indo- 
lent Malays, and in the case of tin-mining, for example, can 
run at a profit mines abandoned as unprofitable by European 
owners. The failure of the example and efforts of a few 



62 SINGAPORE 

progressive Chinamen to induce their fellow-countrymen, 
who have no intention of ever returning to China, to discard 
the pigtail, that badge of subjection imposed on the Chinese 
by the Manchus in the seventeenth century, shows that the 
Singapore Chinese have not lost their ancient conservatism. 
Ordinarily peaceful and submissive, they are sometimes 
roused to a pitch of popular excitement under the incitement 
of secret societies or by some ill-advised enactment which 
leads to riot and bloodshed. The last serious affair of this 
nature occurred in 1888, and was due to an attempt to inter- 
fere with a long-established custom. The houses in the 
business quarters of Singapore project over the footway, and 
are supported by columns and arches so as to form a veranda 
or colonnade such as is still to be seen at Piccadilly Circus. 
Here the shopkeepers, mostly Chinese, were accustomed to 
display their wares to the inconvenience of foot-passengers 
not engaged in shopping. A regulation to keep the foot-way 
clear led to a riot ; and whether there was a formal rescission 
or not, the Chinamen practically gained the day, as they still 
continue to occupy the foot-way with their goods to the in- 
convenience of pedestrians. The wealthy Chinese merchants 
show their appreciation of European luxuries by building the 
finest houses equipped with all modern conveniences, by pur- 
chasing the delicacies of the season for their tables, by own- 
ing the best horses and carriages in the colony, and by 
indulging in such sports and amusements as bicycling, horse- 
back riding (in boots and breeches with pigtail under a cap), 
or driving a four-in-hand or a dog-cart with tandem teams. 
" They drive better cattle than I do," remarked the Governor, 
in the course of conversation ; and it was in Singapore that 
a Chinese syndicate owned the horse that had recently won 
the Viceroy's Cup at Calcutta. They buy big plots of land 
for their graves, and when they die their descendants wear 
white in the pigtail as a sign of mourning. Having gained 
every other point, the Chinese of the higher classes are now 
struggling for social equality and recognition. 

Singapore has been the capital of the Straits Settlements 
since 1832, and has always been a free port. " The bringing 



SINGAPORE 63 

of influence to bear upon the Malay States by means of Resi- 
dents," suggested by Raffles and established fifty years later 
by General Sir Andrew Clarke, has brought under control of 
the Straits Settlements, which has been a Crown Colony 
since 1867, the Federated Malay States of Perak (pronounced 
Perar), Selangor (Selangor), Negri Sembilan, and Pahang. 
The increase of population is due entirely to immigration, 
mostly Chinese and in smaller proportion natives of India, 
for twice as many deaths as births are registered annually in 
Singapore. This is not due to abnormal unhealthiness of the 
climate, although the continuous moist heat undermines 
European constitutions and renders occasional change of 
climate necessary, but to the large coolie population in which 
the males outnumber the females by more than three to one. 
During our stay the thermometer ranged between 70° F. at 
night to 86° in the afternoon, and the extremes registered 
have been 63° to 94°, but even when it is not raining the air 
is full of moisture and very oppressive in the middle of the 
day. Europeans suffer considerably from two common 
complaints, accumulation of wax in the ears and cold in 
the head, and we promptly contracted the latter unpleasant- 
ness. 

The colloquial Malay commonly spoken by all Asiatics in 
Singapore is different from the Sundanese dialect of Java, and 
the Roman characters used to express the sounds have other 
values. For the sound of oo in cuckoo, u is employed instead 
of oe. The g and s is always hard, and final h is not sounded, 
while y and ch are pronounced as in English. It is necessary 
to acquire a limited vocabulary in order to communicate with 
the Malay or Chinese jinricksha QKreta Song Kong') men or 
the Indian hack-gharry (Kreta Seivd) syces. Pergi (pro- 
nounced piggy), drive to, or go to ; berhenti (pronounced 
brenti), stop ; tuan (or the Indian word sahib), meaning 
Mr. ; Punchaus Bahru, Raffle's Hotel ; and Punchaus Besar, 
the Hotel de I'Europe, were phrases learnt the first day, 
and, as Royds frequently remarked, were "jolly useful." 

We went to Raffle's Hotel where, we were told, we should 
find the best rooms, although the Hotel de I'Europe is said 



64 SINGAPORE 

to have better cooking ; but we found this was a matter of no 
consequence, as our friends, with characteristic Eastern hos- 
pitality, so arranged that we never had to dine at the hotel, 
and we went to the club for tiffin. The Adelphi Hotel, 
patronised by German and Dutch visitors, was also well 
spoken of. Perhaps the first thing you will notice on the 
way from the wharf is the good surface of the roads, and the 
painstaking care with which every little inequality is imme- 
diately repaired by the coolies who seem to patrol them. 
The road metal is too soft, however, and while it packs well 
and makes a good surface, it will not stand heavy traffic, and 
requires constant care to keep up. The bearded Sikh police- 
men will attract your attention, as well as the native-born 
Chinese (habas)^ with the crimson silk plaited into their 
pigtails. As you approach the bridge crossing the Singapore 
River, which divides the business quarter from the residen- 
tial district, the Exchange Building, where the Chamber of 
Commerce is located on the ground floor, and above it the 
Singapore Club, will probably be pointed out. The river 
itself is crammed from bank to bank with junks, tongkangs, 
sampans, and prahus, — a hopeless jumble of Chinese, Malay, 
Siamese, and Indian boats and cargoes. After we had our 
luggage unpacked, our first duty was to don the frock coat 
and silk hat, which custom, throughout all the Eastern colonies 
and possessions of Great Britain, requires should be worn in 
making official visits, and pay our respects to H. E., the Gov- 
ernor. Then back to change into a costume more suitable 
to the climate before going to the club — the great gather- 
ing-place of all the male Europeans for half an hour before, 
and at, luncheon, and later, before returning to their homes 
for dinner. 

As far as I could discover, in the Singapore Club a man is 
considered abstemious if, before lunch, he has a " peg " of, 
say, whiskey and tonic-water, followed by a stengah (the 
Malay word for half, usually pronounced stinger) or split 
drink, succeeded by a suku, or a split divided between 
two. The same allowance at lunch and a similar quantity 
before going home is all the liquid refreshment habitually 




The Durian. 



SINGAPORE 65 

taken, and the members say that this conclusively proves that 
a man can live comfortably almost on the equator with an 
extremely small allowance of alcohol. The club has a fine 
billiard room, and there are many good players among the 
members. The game known as " snookers " in England is 
played here under the name of "Shanghai snookers." An 
excellent standing dish at lunch, in place of pudding or other 
sweets, is gulu 3Ialacca, — boiled tapioca, with milk and burnt- 
sugar syrup. 

From Suez to Japan one gets a great variety of fish, but on 
the restaurant menu no further description is given than is 
conveyed in the word " fish," and it is the same at private 
houses and at the clubs. The American peanut or ground- 
nut, known as the monkey-nut in England, is very plenti- 
ful in Singapore, and goes by the Malay name of cachong 
tana (earth beans). The local Chinese name for them is 
fasang. Singapore housekeepers time their dinner-parties 
to take place a day or two after the arrival of the boat from 
Shanghai, which brings down beef from Japan, and game and 
other delicacies from North China. Wild geese and ducks, 
snipe, quail, pheasant, and even venison, come from the 
Yang-tsze Valley by way of Shanghai, and there seems to be 
no " close " season. 

The markets of Singapore are supplied with a great variety 
of tropical fruit, such as the pomelo, or grape-fruit, like big 
oranges or small shaddocks, with smooth skins, some yellow 
and some a light green ; the mango, whose fibrous pulp is 
full of refreshing juice, which, in the poorer varieties, has a 
strong smell and taste of turpentine ; the jack-fruit ; the 
custard apple ; the rambutan ; the mangosteen ; the lang- 
sat ; the namnam ; the chumpadah ; the pineapple, the 
lamopurot, and many others. Among the fruits in season 
we particularly enjoyed a small banana locally known as 
pisang mass, and the sour manilla (^chicou or huah chichoo), a 
fruit like a small pear, which you cut in two and eat with a 
spoon. There are one or two black pips inside, and there is 
a decided taste of cinnamon and similar spices. In talking 
about the taste for durians at a dinner-party of eight couples, 



66 SINGAPORE 

all the ladies declared tlieir fondness for the fruit, and one 
of the men confessed to having eaten as many as six before 
breakfast ; but the other men were not enthusiastic, and one 
said he would never eat them if he could get any other fruit. 
The " swallow-tail " is worn at all formal dinners, but the 
white duck military-cut dress-jacket and trousers with kamar- 
band are permitted on informal occasions. 

There is little twilight in Singapore and if you want to 
enjoy the best part of the day, you must rise before 6. "One 
morning we started from the hotel at 6.45 for Johor, driving 
up the Esplanade to the Bochor Road and into the Bukit 
Timah Road past the Lock Hospital — behind which lie the 
race course and golf links — the cemeteries for Europeans, 
the one for Chinese, the Chinese Club, and so into the country. 
Turning to the right at the fork into the Kranji Road we 
arrived at 8.30 at Kranji on the Johor Strait fourteen miles 
from our hotel. It is a charming drive in the early morning 
air and the road has a splendid surface and is almost level 
except for an easy hill at the eighth mile-post and another 
about a mile before Kranji. The road is lined with trees 
and is well ditched, some of the culverts being dated 1888. 
The mile-stones are marked with Arabian and Chinese 
numerals but the quarter-mile-stones in the fractious only. 
There is running water in the ditch and it serves many 
purposes. It is the bathing-place of the Chinaman's stray 
dogs and pigs ; the bath-tub for small Malay children ; the 
wash-tub of the Indian dhohy who afterward hangs his wash 
out to dry without clothes-pins or pegs by twisting two small 
ropes together tightly, stretching them out taut, and pulling 
them apart sufficiently to introduce the ends of the article, 
which is thus held fast ; the receptacle for house drainage ; 
and lastly the place where the coolie who is bringing your 
daily supply of vegetables stops to wash the harmless soil 
from them so that they may look fresh and clean when he 
delivers them ! You go by sampan across the strait to Johor 
Bahru (or Bharu) to visit the Palace (^Istana) and the 
gambling rooms, and to have tiffin at the Rest House opened 
by the sultan in 1898. This is almost a club-house with 



SINGAPORE 67 

two double and four single bedrooms and every possible 
comfort. Jolior, with an area of about 9,000 square miles, 
has a population of only about 20,000, mostly Chinese. Its 
trade with Singapore has risen to over X 1,200,000 annually. 
On the way back our sampan coolie took advantage of the 
breeze and hoisted a large sail made up entirely from flour- 
bags bearing the names of American millers in great blue 
designs. 

The Singapore sampan is licensed to carry eight passengers. 
The boatman, standing at the stern of the boat facing forward 
with right foot firmly planted athwart-ship, grasps the ends of 
the crossed handles of the oars so that he has his left-hand 
oar in his right hand and the right-hand oar in his left. He 
supports himself on the right foot and leans forward, pushing 
slowly at first and then with a sudden shove at the same time 
advancing his left foot with a sliding movement, and at times 
rising on the ball of the right foot. On the recover, the left 
foot is drawn back again until the heel touches the hollow 
of the right foot. The oars are made in three pieces, a small 
handle set at right angles to a shaft and a paddle joined 
thus. Each oar is attached by a loop of rope to an upright, 




with two notches, similar to those on the Venetian gondolas. 
The sails are nearly square and have bamboo booms top and 
bottom. When required for use, they are unrolled and hoisted 
to the top of the mast by a rope tied round the middle of one 
of the bamboos. There are ropes fastened to each end of the 
other bamboo and the boatman holds these in one hand while 
he steers with the other. 

We stopped halfway between Kranji and Singapore to 
ascend Bukit Timah (Tin Hill), the highest point on the 
island. There is a fine view from its top, five or six hundred 
feet above the sea, and part of the hill is still covered with 
virgin forest. Returning by Cavanagh Road we drove through 
the grounds of Government House and back by the Brassa 
Brassa Road. Another morning we drove out Orchard Road 



68 SINGAPORE 

to the Botanical Gardens and visited the Museum on our 
return. 

One of the most curious things in Singapore is to watch 
the coolies coaling a big ship. Two of them carry, sus- 
pended to a short, thick bamboo pole, a large basket contain- 
ing about a hundredweight of coal, and they go on board by 
one gang-plank, and back by another, keeping up a continual 
stream that soon fills the bunkers. And it is claimed that 
this method of coaling is not only cheaper but more rapid 
than any other. Coolies get one cent a basket from ship to 
wharf, or vice versa, more if carried any distance, and the 
merchant who undertook the contract informed me that dur- 
ing the war in the Philippines he had put on board the U.S. 
transport G-rant 1200 tons in four hours, and had put 3000 
tons on a British man-of-war in eight hours, or 375 tons an 
hour. But the record was made in 1888 when 1500 tons 
were put into a ship over two gang-planks in three hours, 
and it is said that smaller quantities have been put aboard 
ship at the same rate of 500 tons an hour. An average of 
200 tons an hour in loading from alongside by steam cranes 
is considered to be very fast in England, and 250 tons an 
hour the outside limit, although 360 tons have been put 
aboard a German battleship in one hour. While at the 
wharf we could not help noticing the extreme expertness of 
the Malays who dive for coins from tiny dug-out canoes 
which they propel by using the hands for paddles ; and the 
feet are employed in a continual scooping movement to keep 
the miniature vessel, which is overwhelmed by every wave, 
free of water and afloat. 

By law as well as by custom the standard coin in Singapore 
is the Mexican silver dollar, worth in exchange less than 
half an American dollar, or two shillings sterling, but fluc- 
tuating with the value of silver. 

The Indian Penal Code is the basis of the criminal law, 
and the civil law is founded on English practice. In civil 
actions between Asiatics absolutely impartial justice may be 
depended upon as in other parts of the Empire, but when 
it comes to suits in which one party is a European, this 



SINGAPORE 69 

ideal is in oue important particular departed from- The 
general assumption is that all "natives" are liars and per- 
jurers, and the lawyers and the judges refuse to believe that 
the Asiatic will speak the truth under any form of oath. 
Consequently, the European whose word under oath is not 
accepted against any number of Asiatics must stand very 
low in the estimation of the community. Most of us would 
be disposed to act on the same view, but it must sometimes 
work an injustice. In Singapore all civil cases are tried by 
judges without juries, and all who testify are sworn with 
hand upraised in the Scottish fashion. Sometimes the judge 
requires both parties to take the oaths prescribed by their 
respective religions as most binding; but if counsel chal- 
lenges a hostile witness, or the opposite party, to take such 
a form of oath, and the oath is so taken, the testimony of 
the party taking it must be accepted and may win the case. 
Another source of injustice is the impossibility of the native 
or the imported coolie understanding the details of the laws 
under which he is governed. And some of these details are 
vexatious and far-reaching. As an instance of the former 
class, the forestry laws are somewhat oppressive. In the 
Malay state of Selangor more than fifty different varieties 
of trees are preserved, and the ignorant native cutting one 
down in the virgin forest is liable to a heavy fine. 

The Chinese make excellent domestic servants, and most 
families employ them, though some prefer Malay servants, 
who are cheaper and more easy to control ; but it never does 
to mix the Mohammedan Malay with the pig-eating Chinaman, 
and so introduce religious warfare into the household. In 
connection with pigs it is well to bear in mind, in case you 
wish to make, on your return home, some acknowledgment 
of hospitalities received, that a good selected ham, of eight 
to twelve pounds' weight, packed in bran or oats, then sewed 
in canvas, and afterward packed in salt, is always appre- 
ciated here, and the sender blessed. 

There is another feature of Singapore life to be studied, 
after night-fall in Malay Street, where the native courtesans, 
as well as contingents of Austrian and Japanese women, have 



70 SINGAPORE 

their abodes, and where the dusky beauties are always will- 
ing to sacrifice their natural coyness and modesty upon the 
purely commercial basis of three Mexican dollars in hand 
paid. 

The United States consul, Mr. Spencer Pratt, occupied 
a unique position during the period immediately succeeding 
the Spanish- American war when there was some doubt as 
to whether the United States intended to annex the Philip- 
pines. Mr. Pratt's strenuous efforts to direct the colonial 
policy of the United States at so great a distance from 
Washington earned for him the respect, esteem, and grati- 
tude of the bulk of the Filipinos resident in Singapore, and 
they " demonstrated " in his honour, and at a meeting at 
Raffle's Hotel acclaimed him as the " Liberator of the Philip- 
pines." An ungrateful republic refused to give him any 
credit for his proceedings, and took an entirely different 
view of the propriety of his actions. Perhaps the fact that 
Mr. Pratt was a Southern Democrat, who had a contempt for 
all Yankees, may have hastened his recall. As bearing on 
subsequent events, it was established on the most undoubted 
authority that Mr. Pratt's friend, Aguinaldo, agreed to 
place himself under Admiral Dewey's orders, and then 
took an early opportunity of violating his agreement. 

It is curious to note the effect of climate and clothing on 
manners and morals, and to observe the variations of con- 
duct in the same individual who will quite unconsciously 
apply a much less severe standard in judging the actions of 
his neighbours in the tropics than in England. It would 
almost seem that social and marital relations are loosened as 
the temperature of the locality rises and that levity of man- 
ners are the result of lightness of attire. No doubt the re- 
laxation of social restraints is one of the charms of the East, 
for this charm cannot be said to be a physical or even an 
intellectual one. In the tropics bodily comforts are fewer, 
and the discomforts, dangers, and diseases more trying. 
Moreover, the opportunities of mental exercise and improve- 
ment are comparatively rare, and the faculties of the mind 
become less keen. But the social side of life is more devel- 



SINGAPORE 71 

oped and more engrossing. In small communities of 
Europeans, settled in the midst of another race with which 
there is practically^ no social intercourse, the individuals be- 
come closely united by ties of friendship and intimacy as 
well as by interest and for mutual protection. At the same 
time the various members, owing to the common knowledge 
of each man's business, profession, or office, assume with little 
friction the rank in the social scale to which they are en- 
titled, and everybody is " somebody " down to the club 
inebriate who is drinking himself to death, an object of con- 
tempt and pity, but with a social standing higher in its way 
than the best member of the subject native races. When Sir 
Somebody Something returns to his native land after having 
honourably served his country in the colonies until he has 
reached the highest post in the community, he finds himself 
an inconsiderable item lost in the crowd at home. His old 
friends are scattered, and the march of events has left him 
behind the times in many ways. " Othello's occupation's 
gone," and Sir Somebody longs to return where his abilities 
are acknowledged and his position undisputed, where he 
knows everybody and everybody knows him, and where he 
has, at least, some intimate friends. And this same feeling 
prevails throughout the whole social scale, and constitutes 
the greatest charm of the East. 



CHAPTER Vin 

SINGAPOBE TO HONG KONG 

Chinese Coolies. A Riot. Piracy. Chinese Games. Dominoes. 
Poh-tchi. Fan-tan. The Banker must win. A Death at Sea. 
How John Chinaman smokes. Cholera Belts. 

We went from Singapore to Hong Kong by the Austrian 
Lloyd's steamer Maria Valerie, a vessel of 2648 tons carry- 
ing seven cabin passengers, and 520 Chinese deck passen- 
gers forward ; and we did the 1460 knots in six and a half 
days, our best day's run being 240 knots. We had excep- 
tionally large cabins and plenty of well-cooked food. Chota 
hadjiree 6 to 8 A.m., breakfast at 9, tiffin at 1 P.M., tea at 4, 
dinner at 6.30, and supper at 9 ; six meals a day ! 

The voyage afforded a good opportunity of observing the 
effects on the habits and customs of Chinese coolies of some 
years' superficial contact with Western civilisatioiqi. And 
truth to tell, these effects are almost inappreciable, and at 
any rate not nearly so perceptible as in the case of those 
Chinamen of a similar class who spend some years in Cali- 
fornia, or other parts of the United States, where there is 
closer contact with larger numbers of white people. The 
almost universal memento of their residence in foreign lands 
is a large cotton umbrella, and many add to this an American 
" Bee " clock. These poor people, men, women, and children, 
were permitted to take up such places on deck, or between- 
decks, forward, as would not be in the way of the working of 
the ship. An awning was provided to protect them from the 
sun and rain, but otherwise they must shift for themselves. 
They bring on board a piece of matting to sit and sleep on, 

72 



SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 73 

and a small parcel containing their possessions. Wrapped in a 
cloth tied round the waist next to the skin is the roll of 
Mexican dollars representing the savings with which they 
hope to pass a comfortable old age. Some few are merchants, 
travelling for the sake of trade, disguised as coolies to avoid 
the squeezes all rich Chinamen fear they may become the 
victims of in China if their wealth is not concealed. A 
Chinese contractor undertakes to feed each passenger during 
the voyage to Hong Kong for half a Mexican dollar a head, 
or, say, two pence a day, and pays the company handsomely 
for the privilege. The food provided is boiled rice at discre- 
tion, and a small bit of fish or some relish at each meal to 
help it down. There cannot be a large profit on the catermg, 
but the contractor has the exclusive right to run a gambling 
hell on board and in that lies his profit ; for whether at home 
or abroad, John Chinaman is an inveterate gambler, and 
cases are frequent where the returning coolie will lose his all 
on the homeward journey, and at once return to a further 
term of grinding work or in des]Dair commit suicide by jump- 
ing overboard. Not only is gambling permitted but opium 
and tobacco smoking and cooking ; in fact there is little or no 
interference as long as they keep the peace. 

But this was broken the first day out, and the quarrel 
arose with startling rapidity, and spread like wild-fire. We 
were watching the midday rice being dished out, by means of 
a wooden spade, from the huge boiler in which it was cooked, 
and remarked that the coolies seemed to be particularly ani- 
mated, putting it down to a recovery from the special dis- 
comforts of their first night at sea. Suddenly a coolie, clad 
in short trousers and waistband, seized a club and struck the 
cook over the head ; the cook retaliated with the spade, cut- 
ting the coolie across the chest with its edge, and making a 
nasty -looking wound. In an instant sticks and belaying- 
pins were brought into use as weapons, and knives were 
drawn ; and before we knew what was taking place all hands 
were piped on deck ; quartermasters with loaded muskets and 
fixed bayonets fell into place at the gangways leading from 
the main to the promenade deck, and hose pipes were attached 



74 SINGAPOEE TO HONG KONG 

to the hot-water plugs, ready to be turned on. And not a 
minute too soon, for the mob in possession of the lower deck 
began to swarm up the gangways, and only retreated when 
the captain showed them how imminent was the danger to 
them from hot water and cold steel. It took some hours for 
the hubbub to quiet down, and then it appeared that the row 
began over the cook having slightly burnt the rice in cook- 
ing, and refusing to cook a fresh lot. The contractor finally 
ventured to go among them, and by much talk succeeded in 
appeasing them ; and an addition of some small delicacy to 
the evening meal healed all injuries that did not come 
under the hands of the ship's doctor. But the hose 
remained attached and armed sailors remained on guard 
during the rest of the voyage. We were refused permission 
to go among the Chinese passengers for a couple of days, and 
had to be satisfied to watch them from the upper deck. There 
is always a well-grounded fear, in case of an outbreak not 
being promptly put down, that the Chinese will seize the 
ship. Successful piracy is no sin in a Chinaman's eye, and 
piratical attempts are not confined to Chinese junks, but are 
successfully carried out even in these days on river boats 
manned by Europeans, and on one occasion was committed 
on a big steamer making the voyage to Hong Kong. 

The coolies passed the time smoking tobacco and opium, 
reading aloud in a sing-song drawl, cooking small messes 
over lamps, playing dominoes, dice, poh-tclii, European 
cards, game of authors, and fan-tan, or fan-t'an, as it is 
sometimes written. Chinese dominoes are printed on small 
slips of cardboard, about 1 inch wide, and 3^ inches long, 
with rounded ends. These are shuffled, drawn, and held in 
the hand when playing, and, for convenience in holding, have 
the pips printed doubly in each card. For example, the 6-5 



is printed jK^^K/^BEtSR* There are no blanks, 




so that there are 21 varieties, and of these varieties there are 
four of each, making 84 dominoes in all. They are shuffled, 
cut, spread face down on the table, and drawn one at a time. 



SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 75 

until the first player has 16 cards and the others 15 each. The 
first player then lays down, face upward, all cards whose pips 
equal 10, and all combinations of two or more cards whose 
pips added together make 10 or 20, and all identical cards he 
holds to the number of 3 or 4 (three or four " of a kind "). 
Domino 3-4, which totals 7, can, as an exception, be laid 
down with one or more dominoes counting 6, and so making 
a total of 13. The other players in turn lay down similar 
combinations, and then the first player leads a card from the 
balance, if any, in his hand. The player on his right must 
play such a card or cards as, with the one on the table, will 
total 10 or 20 (or 13 if the 3-4 is included), and if he has 
no such cards, must draw from the stock until he can play, 
or the stock is exhausted. If he succeeds without or after 
drawing, he leads a card for the next man to play to. If 
he fails, he has no lead, and the next man tries to make the 
desired combinations from his hand, and if successful, leads. 
Most frequently the game is between two, but it is possible 
for as many as five to play ; and in any case the player who 
succeeds in getting rid of all his cards wins the game and the 
stakes agreed upon. The pips are printed on the cards in 
large black and red balls, so that they are easy to distinguish 
in a very poor light. 

Another game is played by the more scholarly Chinese 
with cards of similar shapes to the domino cards, upon 
which are printed half of a proverb (or some quotation) 
which is to be matched and discarded with the card contain- 
ing the other half of the proverb (or the name of the 
author of the quotation). We were unable to follow 
the games being played with European cards, but the 
favourite seemed to be a compromise between whist and 
euchre. Dice were played by holding six in the closed 
hand with the knuckles up, and dropping them together 
into a shallow bowl. 

Poh-tehi or poh, a species of tee-to-tum, is a hollow cube 
mounted on a pointed spindle for the purpose of spinning it. 
Inside the cube is a die, marked on the four sides, and blank 
on top and bottom. The cube is spun, and bets are made 



76 SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 

on the number of the uppermost side of the die when the 
cube falls and is opened. 

Fan- tan or tan is, however, the great gambling game of 
the Chinese. The implements are simple and can always 
be improvised, cheating is difficult if not impossible, the 
rules few and easy and leave no room for dispute. If you 
are in luck, you can win large sums, so the gambler has 
grounds for hope ; and the banker can afford to see you win, 
as he is practically certain to get it all back in time, together 
with as much as you choose to risk ; for the percentage in 
favour of the banker is enormous. A large bowl of white 
beans is provided (or it may be a heap of pebbles or even 
bits of paper) and a great handful is abstracted by any by- 
stander and set on one side. The remaining beans are turned 
out on the table and the bowl is used to cover the handful 
first taken out and to keep them separate from the others. 
The banker or his assistant takes a long chop-stick and 
subtracts four from the pile of beans and continues taking 
away four at a time until only four or less than four remain. 
The balance will be one, two, three, or four ; and the betting 
is on this balance. The table has ruled on it two lines cross- 
ing at right angles and the extremities of these lines are 
marked, generally in the Chinese characters, one, two, three, 
four. If a simple bet is made, your money is placed on the 
number you wish to back, say one ; and as the chances are 
three to one against you, you receive, if you win, three for 
one, less the banker's commission. You may take the even 
chance of any two numbers against any other two. Or you 
may reverse the common wager and take any three numbers, 
losing if the fourth wins, and winning a third of your stake 
if any of your three correspond with the remainder of the 
beans. 

If the banker had no commission, it would be purelj'- a 
matter of chance or luck. But if you bet 8100 on a single 
number and win, instead of receiving $300 dollars, you are 
only entitled to get 1275, so that the banker retains ^ or 81 
per cent of your winnings. If you bet |100 on an even 
chance and win, the banker pays you only $90 and retains 



SINGAPORE TO HONO KONG 77 

a commission of 10 per cent. In smaller amounts the banker 
gets the advantage of fractional money and his commission 
may exceed 10 per cent ; but as most bets are wagers on one 
number, his average commission is about 9 per cent ! So that 
with equal luck, risking the same stake each time, the banker 
is bound to win your stake every eleven or twelve turns. 
Now, in roulette or rouge-et-noir as played at Monte Carlo 
the chances against any number, including zero, turning up 
is 36 to 1 and the bank pays 35 for 1 en plein, the advantage 
to the bank being one in 36, or less than 3 per cent. The 
bank's percentage is greater on the other eleven " chances," 
or combinations of numbers, such as a cheval, en carre, and so 
on. But on the even or simple chances where the bank's 
advantage is in winning half all such stakes if zero turns up, 
which it must be expected to do once in 37 times, the pro- 
portion is 1 to 74 or about 11- per cent. As larger sums 
are placed on the even chances, the bank must make its 
profit on a commission or advantage of little over 2 per cent 
on the total of the sums staked. On this basis the income 
from the gaming-tables amounts, even in a bad year, to 
.£1,000,000 sterling, and to half again as much in a good year. 
After all charges, which practically include all the expenses of 
the principality of Monaco as well as the annual subvention of 
^70,000 to the prince, two-thirds of this remains as net 
profit to the company, or 55 per cent on its capital of 
£1,200,000. It can be readily seen that the fan-tan banker 
may, by putting a limit to the stakes, secure himself from 
losing all his capital in a run of bad luck and with an 
advantage of 9 per cent in his favour can await with 
confidence and certainty the time when the capital of 
all his regular clients must find its way to his, the banker's, 
pocket. 

So the Chinese contractor could even afford to lose on his 
agreement to feed the Chinese passengers and he did all he 
could to remove all causes for complaint and put them in a 
good humour in order that no prejudice against him or his 
cook should prevent them from gambling with him. Fan- 
tan began in a small way the day after we started and 



78 SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 

increased until the last day, when the table was surrounded 
by an excited crowd and large amounts changed hands at 
each coup. Even the petty officers of the ship played during 
their hours off duty and the talk was all of winnings and 
losings, "systems" and "chances." 

We had one death during the voyage of a poor coolie 
whose body, wasted to bare skin and bones, was without 
formal ceremony of any kind thrown overboard early one 
morning. He had evidently been brought on board in a 
dying condition and his passage paid in the knowledge that 
his end was near and the hope that his death on board ship 
would save the expense of a funeral. There were all the 
symptoms of excessive opium-smoking and the doctor certi- 
fied this as the cause of death. But it is frequently the case 
when a Chinaman has a mortal disease that he is provided 
with sufficient opium to keep him insensible to pain and to 
accelerate the end. 

The bowl of a Chinese tobacco-pipe is a miniature affair. 
The stem is usually of bamboo, straight from bowl to mouth- 
piece, and of any length up to three feet. But there is a 
peculiar metal pipe, in use all along the coast towns up to 
Shanghai, which our coolie passengers seemed to prefer. 
This has an oval base and contains at one end a receptacle 
with a hinged cover for the fine-cut tobacco, a small mov- 
able tube with a bowl, only capable of containing half a thim- 
bleful of tobacco, which when in place has one end in a 
middle chamber full of water. From the top of this cham- 
ber runs a metal stem with a curved mouthpiece decorated 
with a cord for suspending the pipe around the smoker's 
neck. There are in addition places for a small brush, 
tweezers, and other implements used for cleaning purposes. 
John supplies himself with a lighted piece of touch-wood or 
punk, enough tobacco to fill an ordinary European pipe, and 
has smoke for half a day. With the tweezers he extracts a 
few shreds of tobacco and carefully places it in the bowl, 
lights it, and enjoys two, or perhaps three, puffs. Then he 
removes the bowl tube, blows out the ashes, cleans and 
brushes out the bowl, replaces it, and in the course of ten or 



SINGAPORE TO HONG KONG 79 

fifteen minutes is ready to repeat the operation. As the 
tobacco is very light while the quantity consumed is very 
small and the smoke is purified in some degree in its passage 
through the water, nicotine poisoning must be rare witli 
these smokers. 

• As we approached Hong Kong, the ship's sun awnings were 
one by one taken down, and we laid aside our cholera-belts, 
worn since the day we landed at Port Said. These flannel 
belts and pyjamas of the same material are the greatest pro- 
tection against cold and chills, which are so dangerous in the 
tropics. 



CHAPTER IX 

HONG KONG 

The Island of Hong Kong. China-town. Trade. Money. " Chairs." 
The Club. Victoria and the Peak. The Plague. "The Chinese 
must go." The Wily " Boy." " American Girls." 

We arrived at Hong Kong at night when the lights from 
the various streets and buildings, extending from the shore 
up to the Peak, gave the same brilliant effect that is to be 
seen at Gibraltar. And this similarity did not entirely dis- 
appear in the morning's sun when we left our anchorage in 
the harbour, and made fast to the wharf at Kowloon (or 
Kaulung) on the mainland opposite. Perhaps the view at 
sunrise when the Peak was still shrouded in mist while the 
land-locked harbour was sparkling in the sun, reminded one 
more of the Lake of Lugano than of Gibraltar ; but at any 
rate Hong Kong is pleasant to look at from the harbour, and 
we were glad to say farewell to the sight, noise, and smells 
of our coolie passengers. The island of Hong Kong is about 
twenty-seven miles in circumference, hilly, and bare-looking. 
It contains several small villages and, on its northern shore, 
the city of Victoria, which rises in terraces from the reclaimed 
land at the water's edge halfway up the steep side of Mount 
Victoria to Robinson Road, and extends along the shore from 
Mount Davis on the west to Causeway Bay on the east. 
The ridge of hills behind the city rises almost precipitously 
to the Signal Station on Victoria Peak, 1825 feet above the 
sea, and extends along the whole northern shore of the island, 
reaching its highest point at Mount Parker, which is a few 
feet higher. Under the lee of these hills the vessels in the 
harbour are protected from the full violence of the typhoons 

80 



HONG KONG 81 

which come up the China Sea from the south past the Philip- 
pines during the summer months, and carry destruction along 
the Chinese and Japanese coasts. During one of these storms 
the wind gauge has registered as much as 120 miles an hour. 
Notwithstanding the shelter afforded, over 110 junks and 200 
lives were reported to have been lost in three hours in the 
typhoon of November, 1900, and in Hong Kong over twenty 
deaths resulted from houses collapsing. 

For twenty years from its cession until 1861, the colony 
did not extend beyond the island. In that year an area of 
about four square miles of the tip of the Kowloon peninsula 
was ceded, and in 1898 an area of nearly 400 square miles, 
mostly malarious, with a population of about 100,000 was 
"leased" from China. Before this last addition there were 
twenty-five Chinamen to every white man, and the propor- 
tion was constantly increasing by immigration. The census 
taken in January, 1901, showed a population of 284,000, 
exclusive of naval and military forces. As in Singapore, 
the deaths largely exceed the births, in some years by seven 
to one. 

In the city of Victoria the Chinese herd together in 
a quarter of their own ; and the rich amongst them do not 
attempt to occupy the position or make the display which 
is so prominent a feature in Singapore. For the officials in 
Canton have arms long enough to reach their Hong Kong 
compatriots, whereas Singapore is too far away, and there 
are various ways of extorting blackmail from the obvious 
possessors of wealth. Through the secret societies, and in 
other ways, pressure can be brought to bear. For example, 
when strong efforts without much success were being made 
to put down gambling in Hong Kong, the chief of police dis- 
covered that some of his subordinates were being bribed by 
the Cantonese owners of the gambling hells, and convictions 
were secured by the testimony of a Chinamen, who turned 
queen's evidence, and the subsequent confession of a police- 
man. Some time later the Chinaman visited Canton, and 
shortly afterward his body, with the hands tied behind the 
back, was found floating down the Pearl River. 



82 HONG KONG 

Although. Hong Kong is preeminent as a great emporium 
and port, it has begun to develop various manufacturing 
industries, some on a large scale. There are ship and boat- 
building yards, sugar-refineries, cement-works, a cotton-mill, 
and factories for making soap, paper, rope, fireworks, ver- 
milion and other articles, to say nothing of the government 
opium monopoly. 

The standard money is the Mexican dollar, the Hong Kong 
dollar, and the Japanese yen, all of which circulate at a 
parity. The principal banks issue notes payable in silver 
dollars, but they should not be carried away either to Singa- 
pore or Shanghai, as some of them at least are only redeem- 
able at the place of issue. And Japanese yen should not be 
taken to Japan, where they are no longer current money. 
Gold is available at the exchange of the day, and Bank of 
England notes, as well as United States greenbacks, are 
always at a small premium over gold. The Chinese name 
for dollar in the Cantonese dialect, and in the very similar 
local dialect, is ngan. In the interior the real standard is 
the copper-bronze " cash," called in the Cantonese dialect 
ifs'm, which is also the word for thousand {yat-UHn meaning 
one thousand), and 1000 cash nominally go to a local dollar. 
One cash therefore equals one-twentieth of an American cent, 
or one-tenth of a farthing. But owing to depreciation of the 
cash the tael of silver, of the value of 33 pence early in 1902, 
was worth about 1650 cash, or 50 cash equal to 1 penny. 

It is said that Hong Kong possesses three genuine car- 
riages which have been in use from time to time on special 
occasions ; but the public conveyances are " chairs," slung on 
poles carried by two or four bearers, and jinrickshas drawn 
by one or two men. The fare for two bearers ranges from 
ten cents for half an hour, up to one dollar for a day (6 A.M. to 
6 P.M.). A jinricksha, which should only be taken for the 
level roads, can be hired for as low as five cents per quarter- 
hour, and street coolies from three cents a half -hour to thirty- 
three cents a day. In the Kowloon district there are no 
roads ; the nearest approach to them being footpaths, narrow 
and devious. 



HONG KONG 83 

We were advised to go to the Hong Kong Hotel, as it was 
too early in the year to be quite comfortable in the morning 
mists at the Peak Hotel ; but the former being full we went 
to the Windsor, where we enjoyed a laugh over our first 
meal. The tiffin bill-of-fare had each dish numbered, and 
the Chinese waiters take your order by numbers only. One 
of the party wanted some currant fritters, and asked for them 
by the corresponding number 21. The intelligent waiter, 
after some delay, brought him two portions of number 1, which 
was chicken broth. We enjoyed nothing else at the Windsor 
but this laugh, and were glad to leave and accept the kind 
hospitality of the Hong Kong Club, where we were admitted 
as visitors, after being duly proposed and seconded, and where, 
upon payment of seven dollars a month, we were entitled to all 
the advantages of membership up to three months, and could 
have a most comfortable bedroom at four dollars a day up to 
ten days. The club building is a fine structure of five 
storeys, situated on a square of land by the water front, on 
the Praya. This reclamation of about fifty-seven acres, 
begun some ten years ago, was just being finished off with 
office buildings of the splendid types characteristic of both 
dwellings and offices for Europeans in Hong Kong. The 
appointments of the club are upon a most liberal scale, and 
in addition to the usual comforts, card-room, six billiard 
tables, and so on, there is a very good library from which 
members can borrow books as from a circulating library. 
In the basement are several bowling alleys, which, in addi- 
tion to affording excellent exercise to the members, promote 
sociability and late hours, as the noisy character of the game 
prevents the resident members from going to bed or to 
sleep. 

Victoria is well provided with the electric light, and has 
an excellent water-supply as far as quality goes, but the 
quantity is apt to run short in times of prolonged drought. 
There is a good market where, amidst a deafening din, one 
can purchase a great variety of comestibles. The fruits in 
season were mangoes, strawberries (for sale by the dozen), 
pomeloes, and lychees. The latter when fresh are full of a 



84 HONG KONG 

delicate juicy grape-like pulp as different from the exported 
dried fruit as a grape is from a raisin, but it is said that too 
great an indulgence in this fruit leads to an attack of boils. 
There are delightful walks to be taken over the hills and 
valleys behind the town, and no one should miss the view 
from Victoria Peak, which can be reached by chair with four 
bearers or by the High Level Tramway which goes nearly to 
the top. The old walled city of Kowloon lies to the north- 
east. The panorama of the town and harbour is spread beneath 
one's feet; and on all sides, except due east, where Mount 
Parker shuts off the horizon, are charming views over the 
hills to the sea dotted here and there with junks and steamers. 
It is from here that all incoming vessels are signalled long 
before they arrive in port. A favourite short walk begins 
with a stiff ascent to the Bowen Road, which follows the 
almost perfectly level conduit from the tramway to Happy 
Valley, four miles east. Here are the old cemeteries, and 
next to them is the race course where the great annual sport- 
ing meeting takes place in February, which brings visitors 
from far and near and marks the height of the Hong Kong 
season. In Victoria one can get at fair prices the best brands 
of Havana as well as of Manila cigars, and those who had 
run short were well advised in taking in supplies to last to 
San Francisco. 

The bubonic plague was causing some anxiety and was ex- 
tending. Up to the time we landed the deaths had exceeded 
the cases. But this was accounted for by the large number 
of those who died and were only afterward discovered to 
have had the plague, and therefore were never included 
among the " cases," which latter is short for " plague patients 
under treatment." However, the real mortality during 1899 
and 1900 was over 95 per cent of those attacked by the plague. 
The percentage of deaths has been smaller in Egypt, where out 
of 382 cases reported during the year, 228 (about 60 per 
cent) died and 137 were cured, leaving 17 under treatment. 
Eight Japanese doctors are reported to have been engaged in 
March, 1892, to go to Hong Kong to combat the plague. 

A curious sight may be witnessed any afternoon at the 




Chinese Temple, Hong Kong. 



HONG KONG 85 

American consulate where the Chinese apply for passports to 
enter the United States. The restrictions on Chinese immi- 
gration into the States are very stringent, and Chinese mer- 
chants and students desiring to travel there are put through a 
searching examination which begins with an investigation of 
their shoulders, to see if they bear the callous lumps caused 
by the bamboo pole used by coolies, and of their finger nails 
to see that the length shows that they are unaccustomed to 
manual labour. 

In case you remain long in Hong Kong you will find it 
convenient to employ a Chinese servant ; and when you do so, 
give him the choice of an English name, and refuse to call 
him by a Chinese one, unless you wish to run the risk of 
being led by your wily " boy " to call him " master," " lord," 
or some other title of superiority. 

The appellation " an American girl " has connected with it 
so many charming associations that it gave us rather a shock 
to find that in Hong Kong it was only applied to the fair but 
frail class of American women who were at first relegated to 
the Chinese quarter of Victoria, near the top of Glenealy 
Road, but who have taken up their residences in more con- 
venient and fashionable neighbourhoods. On the whole they 
are the best-looking and best-dressed women in the colony, 
and their private chairs with four bearers in livery are usually 
the smartest and best turned out. Some of them had put 
their coolies in the governor's livery, and only discontinued 
doing so when threatened with an application of the regula- 
tion confining them to Chinatown. It is difiicult to avoid 
the " American girl " in Hong Kong by day, and by night it 
is necessary to carefully direct your chair coolie to the club 
or the hotel or he will land you at one of their houses as a 
matter of course. 



CHAPTER X 

CANTON 

Pirates and Thieves. The Canton River. Shameen. Canton. Street 
Scenes. Temples. Execution ground. The Water-clock. Chinese 
Coins. The Examination Hall. The Literati. The City Walls. 
Streets and Eoads. Feng-shui. A Prison. Shops. The Flower 
Boats. 

Befoee leaving Hong Kong I had parted with the com- 
panions with whom the excursions into Ceylon and Java had 
been made, and with whom I had passed so many pleasant 
days. However, I had planned to visit Canton, and one fine 
morning, at 8 o'clock, left Hong Kong by the steamboat 
Hankow, built in 1874 for the Yang-tsze trade, — a fine, 
paddle-wheel river boat of over three thousand tons, with 
excellent cabin accommodation, but not adapted for much 
cargo. 

The stand of arms in the saloon reminded one that the 
short voyage of ninety miles to Canton was not altogether 
without risk, for piracy is not uncommon on the Pearl River, 
although it is rare that a boat of this size is openly attacked. 
But smaller steamers have been recently captured in sight 
of Hong Kong, and the Hankow crew have to be constantly 
alert to prevent cargo or fittings being stolen ; and as an 
example of what may be expected, I may mention that more 
than one anchor has been made away with by clever thieves. 

This is not quite as daring as the Singapore Chinaman 
who stole the clock from the wall of the court room while 
the court was sitting, but will serve to demonstrate that the 
Cantonese are not deficient in the propensity for stealing, 
that is so generally characteristic of the Chinese. It is even 
said that professional thieves in China carry their booty to 
the officials, who take a share in the plunder under cover of 



CANTON 87 

the fiction that the goods have been " found," and a charge 
must be made for taking care of lost property and its admin- 
istration. On the other hand, official action is sometimes 
successful in putting down theft, for the telegraph line 
between Canton and Hong Hong was continually being 
destroyed for the sake of stealing the poles and wire, and it 
was only by placing the government's mark on each pole as 
it went up, with the notice that the death penalty would fol- 
low any pilfering of government property, that this class of 
robbery was put an end to. 

Cases of piracy are most common on the West River (Si- 
Kiang), — which connects with the Canton River, but finds its 
main outlet near Macao ; — and as far back as forty years ago 
they averaged two a week for some months. Murder is sel- 
dom added to piracy, but when a vessel is captured, and the 
crew secured, a landing is made at some out-of-the-way place, 
and the merchandise carried away. Once ashore, and the 
booty put away in safety, the pirates become private mer- 
chants, and are rarely brought to justice. The pirates 
usually embark as passengers, and watch their opportunity 
to overpower the crew. Sometimes confederates are sta- 
tioned in a boat, ready to come alongside and secure the 
booty when signalled. 

The network of waterways and islands in the delta of the 
West and Canton rivers has been the haunt of pirates since 
the days of Koshinga (Kwosingye), the Chinese leader who 
resisted the Manchu invasion, and held these islands, as well 
as the island of Formosa, until his death. His successful 
command of the sea is a bright point in the history of the 
Chinese race, and they do not readily distinguish between 
the successful patriot and the successful pirate. 

In the piracy, in 1874, of the Sparh^ one of the river boats 
running between Canton and Macao, the American captain, 
Brady, the chief mate, and the purser were killed. In the 
piracy of the Namoa^ Captain Pocock was killed ; and in the 
piracy of the British steam-launch Wane/fat, in January, 1902, 
the pirates carried off two of the crew as hostages, to secure 
terms for some of their number who were captured. 



88 CANTON 

After breakfast, which was served at 8.30, we were steam- 
ing north off the entrance to Deep Bay, the northern limit of 
the " new territory," so called, not on account of the depth 
of water, for the bay is mostly shoal, with a narrow little 
channel in the middle, but because it is a deep indentation in 
the land. 

The Canton River has many other names. The Chinese 
call it Chau-Kiang, Chu-Kiang, or Kiu-Kiang. The Portu- 
guese named it the Bocca Tigris, and it was long known as 
the Bogue. At Canton it becomes the Pearl River, and 
farther west flows the North River (Pe-Kiang), which has 
outlets into both the Canton and West rivers. The estuary 
of the Canton River is shallow, and was, at the time we 
steamed up, thickly planted with stakes, to which fishing- 
nets were fastened. Most of the fishing and cargo junks 
have sterns cut off square, and an exceptionally large rudder 
perforated with lozenge-shaped holes, the rudder-post sup- 
ported from above, and not hinged below to the stern-post. 
The Chinese claim that the holes cut in the rudder do not 
reduce the steering qualities, while they do reduce the 
weight. Many of the larger junks had a stern paddle-wheel, 
worked treadmill fashion by about twelve coolies, some of 
them women. Some of the smaller ones, with furled sails 
covered with matting, crawled along with only one man or 
woman sculling. As we neared Canton the junks and sam- 
pans increased in number, the latter all worked by women, 
three to each boat, one standing amidship sculling and steer- 
ing, gondolier fashion, and two in the bow pulling oars. In 
the lower reaches paddy-fields covered the flats, and higher 
up banana and lychee trees were common ; the latter ripen 
here in June. Near where the Tung-Kiang enters the Can- 
ton River from the east, and the latter curves to the west, 
we stopped at Whampoa, where there is a small dry-dock 
and a Chinese customs station. At 2 p.m. we passed a river 
barrier near a nine-storeyed pagoda (a word that is not Chi- 
nese, by the way), and half an hour later a similar pagoda 
and barrier commanded by a square fort mounting four 
cannon. These barriers are to be removed by the end of 1904. 



CANTON 89 

Another half hour, and we steered our way past the three 
small lighthouses in the river, marking the channel, and 
made fast to the landing-stage at Canton. Those who are 
satisfied with one day in Canton can leave Hong Kong in 
the evening at 6 o'clock, remain on the boat all night, and, 
after spending the day in Canton, return to Hong Kong the 
same evening. In such a case one should apply to the cap- 
tain to select a guide, and to the purser for some luncheon 
to take along, for no European food can be procured in Can- 
ton itself. 

A little above the steamboat landing-stage, on the " Macao 
passage," is the island of Shameen (Shawmeen or Shamien) 
which is set apart as the settlement of the European com- 
munity. The island is something oyer half a mile long and 
about a thousand feet wide, with a substantial river wall which 
forms a pleasant promenade where the residents take their 
constitutionals and the native amahs play with the children, 
well-laid-out streets, and fine offices and dwelling-houses, as 
well as a church and a comfortable club which contains a 
theatre. On the other side of the narrow channel which 
separates Shameen from the "Western Suburbs are some of 
the finest streets and best shops that Canton can boast. 

Canton can be seen extended along the Pearl River for 
about four miles, and it is about two miles from the river 
to the most northern point of the wall near the Five 
Storey Pagoda, which rises above Kun Yan Hill. In the 
foreground is a dense mass of house-boats moored along the 
bank, with a wide and almost as dense fringe of sampans. 
A census taken here some years ago showed, according to 
Chinese figures, some 84,000 boats ; and as the owners have 
no other habitation but are born on them, live on them, are 
married on them, and die on them, the riparian population 
must account for a material proportion of the 2,500,000 
inhabitants credited to Canton and its suburbs by some 
writers. This estimate is undoubtedly an exaggerated one 
and that of 1,500,000 in all, of which 800,000 is the popula- 
tion of Canton proper within the walls, is certainly nearer 
the mark. 



90 CANTON 

Over the tops of the boats can be seen the irregular 
jumble of houses lying between the river and the wall of 
the New City. These houses are mostly two-storeyed build- 
ings of timber supported on brick piers and roofed with 
curved earthenware tiles. Above the roofs, stretched between 
long poles, are many sky-signs advertising the merchants' 
wares. Between the walls of the Old and New Cities rise, 
to the height of about 150 feet, the twin Gothic spires of the 
French Roman Catholic cathedral, begun in 1860 and finished 
twenty years later. Farther north a couple of pagodas com- 
pete for prominence with the many great, square, brick 
buildings of the official pawnshops; and the towers over 
the gateways in the walls seem scarcely above the general 
ruck of buildings. One or two gaps showed where recent 
fires had worked destruction; but no time was being lost 
and reconstruction was rapidly going forward. In December, 
1901, an area of many acres was swept by a fire which 
destroyed some eight hundred houses. 

The friends who made my stay in Shameen so pleasant 
had engaged for me the doyen of the fraternity of guides. 
Ah Cum Senior, who met me on the wharf and whisked me 
off in a chair with four bearers to see the sights of the 
Western Suburbs. We went through miles of narrow streets, 
some of them covered so as to form long arcades, and the 
vista of such an arcade with its succession of vermilion and 
gilt signs is striking enough to make one almost forget the 
dirt under foot and the smells that are all-pervading. Chinese 
sign-boards about six feet high and twelve to eighteen inches 
wide would make a very effective wall decoration for the 
interior of a bungalow or a billiard-room. In some of the 
lanes the whole road was covered with the big, round, shallow 
baskets in which grain was being dried in the sun, and we 
had to pick our way carefully between them. The smells 
are not all of them entirely bad, for each street has its altar 
and every shop a niche for the daily incense-burning, so that 
burning punk gives an occasional variation to one's sorely 
tried nose. 

We visited the Flowery Forest Monastery or Temple of Five 



CANTON 91 

Hundred Disciples (Wa Lam Tsz), said to have been founded 
1400 years ago, and there inspected, without counting, the five 
hundred well-gilt wooden figures seated in rows against the 
walls, each with an incense bowl before it. In the centre of the 
temple there is a bronze pagoda, containing some small figures 
of the same material, which is a fine example of metal work. 
Before arriving so far, however, one must pass through a build- 
ing containing three Buddhas and another with a marble model 
of a seven-storeyed pagoda. Near by is the Temple of Cho 
Shing with its sixty images, and farther away the Temple 
of Pak-tai or the God of the North. In front of the latter 
is a large open square for theatrical performances. The 
Ningpo Ni-Kun, or Guildhall, is likewise used for such per- 
formances and also as an exchange and as a temple ; but the 
Guildhall of the Green Tea Merchants, with its curiously 
shaped doors and windows, is much more interesting. We 
stopped to watch a couple of carpenters sawing a log into 
boards, one standing on the log supported on a trestle and 
the other standing underneath, the saw being worked between 
them. We also looked in at some of the silk- weavers at work 
and watched the woman throw the bobbin or spindle to make 
the weft while the boy perched above, who is working the 
primitive loom with his feet, pulls up the warp according to 
the pattern as it is arranged on a rod. Some of the products 
of the Canton looms are both good and cheap ; and it was 
here I was advised to buy the black Chinese crepe, or Tussore 
silk, for feather-weight evening-dress suits. In general it is 
better to buy silks in Japan if you are going on. 

On another day with Ah Mak as guide I was taken to the 
execution ground, a cul-de-sao about seventy-five feet long by 
twenty-five feet wide, where criminals are brought in batches 
to be decapitated, or to be cut into a thousand pieces. The 
criminal who suffers the latter horrible penalty is bound to 
a cross, and the real number of cuts is said to be thirty-six 
followed by a stab to the heart. Few are so poor as not to 
be able to bribe the executioner or jailer to provide enough 
opium to produce a condition of semi-consciousness. When- 
ever a European is present at an execution, the crowd will 



92 CANTON 

push him to the front in order to watch how he will stand 
the ordeal. About three hundred executions a year is the 
average ; but for five days out of six the ground is used by 
a potter as a drying place for earthenware cooking-furnaces, 
and the crosses standing against the wall are the only reminder 
of the cruelties inflicted here. 

From the execution ground it is a fairly straight road 
through the walls of the New and Old Cities, to the Double 
Gateway containing the clepsydra, or water-clock. This is an 
arrangement of four copper jars draining one into another, the 
lowest one, which is emptied every twelve hours, containing 
a float which indicates the time by six divisions of two hours 
each. The clock was fully two hours out of the way when 
we saw it, but whether this was the accumulated error since 
it began in the year 1324, or simply the daily variation, it 
was impossible to discover. 

Then we doubled back to the Examination Hall near the 
Eastern Gate outside of which lies the mint where the silver 
coinage of the Kwang-tung Province, of which Canton is the 
capital, is struck and where there is a plant said to be capa- 
ble of turning out 2,000,000 bronze " cash " a day. The 
" stamping " of cash is an innovation, as for thousands of 
years Chinese cash have been cast. There is, moreover, 
another mint for stamping cash at Wu-chang, with a capacity 
of 36,000 cash per hour, and even as far inland as Cheng-tu 
there is a local mint for silver coinage. 

It is no exaggeration to say "thousands of years" in 
speaking of Chinese coins, for in the City Hall Museum at 
Hong Kong are specimens of the so-called " bell-shaped " 
bronze coins dating as far back as 2852 B.C. Scimiter-shaped 
bronze coins of the Chau dynasty, called " Lu's Knife," are 
shown dating from 1122 to 255 B.C., and there are cast cash 
over 2000 years old. Some large round bronze coins two to three 
inches in diameter with a square hole in the centre like the 
ordinary cash, and bearing in Chinese characters the legend 
" Prevailing abundance plenty," are also exhibited, and are 
stated to have been made in 1851. The obverse of the pres- 
ent issue of one of the Cantonese silver coins, which is ex- 




o 



CAI^TON 93 

actly the size of an English shilling, shows a human-faced 
dragon, surrounded by the inscription, " Kwang-tung Province 
1 Mace and 4-1 Candareens," in English. The reverse is en- 
tirely Chinese characters. As 10 candareens equal 1 mace, 
it is puzzling to know Avhy it should not be written " 5 mace 
and 4 candareens," or more shortly, " 54 candareens," and it 
can onl)' be explained by the fact that it is easier to calculate 
on the abacus with 44 than with 54. 

The Examination Hall is the name of a vast collection 
of buildings and sheds where the examination of graduates 
of the first degree or Bachelor of Arts takes place every 
three years. There are in the grounds about eight miles of 
wooden sheds set in parallel rows, and divided into nearly 
twelve thousand compartments, or cells. These are less than 
four feet wide, are absolutely bare, and are open on one side. 
The competitors bring their food and writing materials, and 
are given two boards which fit into slots, and are used one as 
a table and the other as a seat. The text is given out at 
daylight and the competitor is obliged to remain composing 
Ms essay with his back to the opening and his face to the 
wall. He must eat his food and obey the calls of nature 
without leaving his place, and for twenty-four to sixty hours 
must remain whatever happens, and he has three such ses- 
sions in nine days. Something under two per cent succeed 
and attain the degree of Master of Arts, while the unsuc- 
cessful ones must wait three years for another chance. 

Those fortunate individuals who by bribery, corruption, 
collusion, fraud, personation, purchase of papers, or, as some- 
times happens, by scholarly attainments, pass and become 
graduates of the second degree, are entitled to repair to 
Shun Tien Fu near Peking to go through a similar compe- 
tition for a graduate-ship of the third degree or " Doctor," 
and having successfully passed all these ordeals, and a further 
division of Doctors into three grades at Peking, are qualified 
to wait, with some fifty thousand other graduates of the 
third degree, for a chance to beg, bribe, or buy themselves 
into office. 

Meanwhile the graduate has important exemptions (he 



94 CANTON 

may not, for example, be beaten except on the palm of the 
hand), and takes his place in the highest of the four great 
social divisions. This includes officials and literati^ the 
second is the farming class, the third artisans, and the fourth 
and lowest merchants. It is the large number who fail to 
pass the examinations, together with those who pass but fail 
to get and retain official appointments, who form centres of 
discontent and become the leaders of mobs, the instigators of 
riots, and the fomenters of revolution. 

There are legends that Chinese scholars of exceptional at- 
tainments have attained to high office without the advantages 
of wealth, influence, or intrigue. But the Manchu caste 
practically monopolises all the high offices, and Li Hung- 
chang was the one exception of a Chinaman who has risen 
to the highest offices in the state since the Manchus conquered 
China and secured the throne for the reigning dynasty of Ta 
Ch'ing in 1644. After Li's death in 1901, a temple in Peking 
was dedicated to him, and this again was a unique honour 
for a Chinaman. 

Until February, 1902, when this law was changed by an 
edict, it was illegal for a Manchu to marry a Chinese, and 
before that time no Manchu was permitted to go out of the 
country. This is the reason that so many men of moderate 
abilities and inferior position have been sent to represent the 
country at foreign courts, because the Manchu nobles and 
high officials could not go abroad, and the number of China- 
men who have attained to a high rank has been extremely 
small. Only Manchus can become officials without the test 
of the public examinations or literary degrees which are the 
Chinaman's only road to power and fame. The rich Chinese 
literati may buy their way ; and hope is always held out to 
the poor ones that good luck may lead them to the coveted 
position where wealth may be accumulated. This hope is 
one of the few consolations left to a conquered people by 
their oppressors. 

Our excursion ended at the Five Storey Pagoda, the tower 
in the northern wall. This is said to have been built five 
hundred years ago, and it is to-day the favourite place for 




fM 



CANTON *^5 

ors, who bring along their hmch where they can eat it 
from the smells and crowds of tho city. The walls 
omselves, which make a circuit of twenty li, or about six 
miles, round the Old and New Cities, are from twenty-five to 
forty feet high, and fifteen to twenty -five feet thick, and are 
built of earth faced with brick and stone. The wall near 
■*^re is furnished with antiquated, smooth-bore cannon, cov- 
with rust and mounted on wooden carriages, only a 
le more useful than the painted representation of guns 
h fill some of the port-holes. Witliin the walls near the 
I r are temples and graves, and outside the walls are more 
gr ves and three or four forts. In the direction of Whampoa 
can be seen the two nine-storeyed pagodas and the Bogue 
forts ; to the east lie the White Cloud Hills and the valley of 
the Tung-Kiang, to the south-west the Sai Chin Hills, while 
to the north is a large plain, the valley of the Pe-Kiang. 
In Canton (or as the natives call it, Kwang-chau-fu) the 
mc 1 streets are generally paved with granite slabs twelve 
inches wide, three inches thick, and three or four feet long, 
usually laid crosswise but sometimes lengthwise. A paved 
road over four feet wide is uncommon in a Chinese city, and 
outside the cities a metalled or paved road is not to be found. 
If transport by water is impracticable, merchandise must be 
carried, sometimes on an animal's back but almost universally 
in South China on the back of a man. Canton is particu- 
larly clean and well paved for a Chinese city, second only 
perhaps to Nanking, the ancient capital of China, where a 
wide metalled road runs for nine miles straight through the 
city. Canton has a road across the Old City from the East 
Gate to the West Gate, but such road-building is unusual and 
contrary to that mysterious system of superstition called 
feng-shui (ovfung-shui) by which all builders of roads, 
houses, and temples are guided unless they court disaster 

and bad luck. 

The superstitions connected with feng-shui are sufficiently 
complex, but the mandarins use them as a pretext for oppos- 
ing most projects connected with lands and building pro- 
posed by foreigners, and generally use them successfully. 



96 CANTON 

On another visit to the city we went to the Temple of 
Shing Wong, where can be seen paintings of the ten punish- 
ments of the Buddhist hell ; then to one of the prisons to 
see the unfortunates who were getting a foretaste of Hades. 
Some of the poor devils were wearing the cangue, or square 
wooden collar, and had to depend on the pity of their fellow- 
sufferers to help them put into their mouths such food as 
they might be able to beg or buy. Others were chained to 
stones or bars of iron, and all were filthy and wretched in the 
extreme. And the prison was surrounded by gambling sheds 
in full swing, providing every temptation to those out of 
prison to find a short cut in. It was a relief to leave this 
unsavoury neighbourhood to go to the Temple of the Five 
Genii and there to see the great bell weighing some 10,000 
pounds, and the stones, each before a shrine, representing the 
five rams which carried the genii to Canton, which is still 
called the City of Rams. South of the walls, in the direction 
of the execution ground, is the new Guildhall of the Swatow 
Guild where the wood-carving on the grand entrance and the 
carved stone pillars in the first court are worth inspection as 
specimens of recent Chinese workmanship. Across the river 
is the largest Buddhist temple in Kwang-tung, founded three 
hundred years ago, and open daily to all who choose to come. 
From fifteen to forty priests conduct the service, and after a 
day in the noise and confusion of Canton it is restful to go 
over to Honam in time for the evening service at 5 o'clock, 
and watch and listen to the good priests for half an hour. 

A visit to Canton is an experience not to be missed, but as 
far as pleasure and comfort go it is one that few care to 
repeat. It can only be done safely in "chairs." These are 
of two kinds, one a sort of sedan-chair, entered from the front ; 
and the other, which Europeans usually use, a plain, stout, 
wooden chair with a foot-rest, carried on bamboo poles by 
two or four men. The chair coolies go at a dog-trot, shout- 
ing as they go " yaw-ch " at the top of their voices, to clear 
the way in the narrow streets. Sometimes you find yourself 
placed in a doorway or above a lot of merchandise in order 
to let other chairs pass, and at the steep steps over the 




Street in Canton. 



CANTON 97 

smaller canals, and at difficult corners, you get an extra shak- 
ing-up. At the best of times the Chinese are more curious 
than is quite agreeable, and contempt for the " foreign devil " 
(^fan-hwei or fan-ki) is made evident by the continual hawk- 
ing and spitting that attends his progress. On one occasion 
when riding for a short distance in a covered chair, I was 
repeatedly hissed ; presumably because it was taken as an 
indication that I Avas afraid to take the chances of having 
some filth thrown at me if I rode in an open chair. The 
charge is half a Mexican dollar, — say, a shilling, — for each 
coolie per day; but the "passenger-man," as the visitor is 
called, must expect the guide to charge him at least double, 
and to ask for a " tip " (cumslia or cumshoiv) in addition to the 
agreed tariff, as well as an allowance for food {chow'). If 
you gracefully submit to these petty exactions, your guide 
may permit you to call him "boy," and may even so far 
demean himself as to kowtow (or Fofow) on parting. 

In the shops for imported goods you will find umbrellas, 
matches, and brushes from Japan, as well as tooth brushes 
and tooth paste; cotton blankets and brass buttons from 
Germany; cigars from Manila; cigarettes, flour, condensed 
milk, and kerosene from the United States ; crude oil from 
Russia and Sumatra; needles from America and Germany; 
nails from America and France ; and soap from many coun- 
tries. You may also see the dry yellowish- white root of the 
ginseng, or genseng, " the first of plants," which is largely 
imported from the United States. It is highly prized by the 
Chinese for its medicinal properties, and as much as four 
guineas a pound is paid for choice roots. It has "a muci- 
laginous sweetness somewhat resembling licorice, accom- 
panied with a slight aromatic bitterness." But in spite of 
the increased consumption of many of these articles, the total 
imports into China do not grow very rapidly, and probably 
will not do so until railroads are built to open up the coun- 
try. The United States is second only to Great Britain in 
the value of goods sold to China ; and China sells more to 
the United States than to any other country, so that the total 
trade with the States equals that with the United Kingdom. 



98 CANTON 

Nothing conld exceed the scrupulous cleanliness of the 
better class of shops, and the freshness of the linen and silks 
worn by the owners ; but there is so much filth close at hand 
that one only looks upon these clean spots as exceptions to 
the general rule. We included in our purchases samples of 
the ingenious brass padlocks called nankinjo. 

As compared with other Chinese cities Canton is, on the 
whole, probably the cleanest ; but some of the poorer parts 
of it are filthy beyond words, and the wretched inhabitants 
seem in the most extreme poverty. Here you will find the 
windows made of pieces of oyster shells that let in a modi- 
fied darkness on people to whom rice is a luxury, and even 
the cheap but sustaining sweet-potato difficult to procure. 
Perhaps when they die a cooperative society to which they 
have in some way managed to contribute 
will provide the coffins of the kind we had 
seen so many being made, with the rounded 
sides and flat ends, forming a section like this. 
These coffins are made of wood four to ten 
inches thick, and it is estimated by the United States consul 
at Niu-chwang that eight to ten million feet of lumber are 
used for this purpose annually, "which is probably more 
than is used for any other purpose in China." 

Babies are carried on the back, fastened with a square 
cloth with bands at each corner, two of which go round the 
nurse's waist and two over the shoulders, all being tied 
together in front. 

There are policemen at the gates where the bridges cross 
to Shameen, and there are Chinese guard-boats in the canal 
armed with old swivel-guns or blunderbusses which might 
possibly keep a Chinese mob at bay; but for all practical 
purposes Shameen is only protected from a not too friendly 
people by the prestige and proximity of the English at Hong 
Kong, whence all the luxuries and necessities for the foreign 
community, including every drop of water used in drinking 
or cooking, must be brought by boat. 

One evening after dinner a party of us went by sampan to 
visit the " Flower Boats" (Awafm^), so called because the young 




@ii 



CANTON 99 

women to be met with there occupy the relation of flowers to 
the male butterflies who resort to them. The finest of these 
house-boats are moored side by side in long rows with planks 
from one to another just below the landing-stage, and you 
are welcome to walk from one to another, and look in upon 
the amusements going forward without let or hindrance. 
These boats are used for all the purposes of clubs, music 
halls, gambling dens, and brothels. Some of them are pri- 
vate, some may be hired for an evening, and some are open 
to all who can afford to pay. In one you may see a group 
watching two veterans contest a game of go with black and 
white counters on a board of 324 squares. In another there 
may be a domino competition. Fan-tan may absorb the oc- 
cupants of a third, and a singing girl with an orchestra of 
four pieces may be entertaining at a fourth. A big dinner 
may be going on in one, and behind the diners will be seated 
their women, sedately nibbling watermelon seeds whilst the 
men gorge themselves with Javanese bird's-nest soup, salted 
duck's eggs, cooked dog's meat, and a hot dish of boiled or 
steamed dough cut into strips like nouilles. Flour is increas- 
ingly consumed in China in this way ; but bread is practically 
unknown to the Chinese. The favourite drinks seemed to be 
warm samshu (or samsu), a sort of arrack distilled from rice, 
and tea scented with chulan seed or rose leaves. 

I had the good fortune to meet an old Chinese acquaint- 
ance who had been the agent of the Six Companies in San 
Francisco some years before, and who had returned to Can- 
ton and was running a silk filiature on the West River, 
employing, he told us, some 340 hands. He had engaged 
one of the boats for the night, and was giving an enter- 
tainment to his friends and their mistresses. Our party was 
made most welcome, and we had the advantage of participat- 
ing in the eating and gambling, and listening to some well- 
executed Chinese music. Our host was evidently a believer 
in the saying quoted by E. H. Parker, in his " John China- 
man and a Few Others," that "one lamp lights two bed- 
rooms," for he had two or three mistresses. These and the 
other young women present, many of whom were between 

L.Oi C. 



100 CANTON 

tlie ages of thirteen and sixteen, were all richly dressed, and 
freely covered with powder and paint, and were all of the 
higher caste of Chinese women, who resort to foot-binding, 
and of a physique which seemed as fragile as their morals. 
But no amount of persuasion would induce any one of them 
to so much as shake hands with us, and our host apologised 
for this in explaining that they were bound to avoid all con- 
tact with Europeans for fear of losing caste, and endanger- 
ing their chances of advancement to the position of concubine 
with an established legal position. Only the sampan women, 
who are physically the finest class in Canton, but who are at 
the bottom of the social scale, prostitute themselves to Eu- 
ropeans, and on the way back to Shameen, when we stopped 
to watch two old boat-women quarrelling, until the climax of 
the row was reached in the deadly insult conveyed by shak- 
ing their trousers at one another, we received many offers 
from these enterprising creatures for considerations ranging 
from four down to two shillings. There is one physical 
characteristic about the southern Chinese, even among the 
poorer classes, and that is that the hands are usually well- 
shaped, and are generally kept clean ; and the same might 
be said of the feet of the peasants, sailors, and boat-women, 
who go about barefooted. 



CHAPTER XI 

MACAO (mACAU) 

«* The Monte Carlo of the Far East." Opium. Gamblers and Courte- 
sans. Sunday in Macao. The Poet Camoens. Japanese and 
Chinese Sailors. The Philippines. Admiral Dewey and Captain 
Mahan. Macao to Shanghai. 

The steamboat leaves Canton for Macao at 8 a.m., passing, 
on the way down, Whampoa, Second Bar Pagoda, Tai Kok 
Tow, Tiger Island, Lankeet, and Keon Point, and arriving 
about 3 P.M., the distance being eighty-eight miles. On the 
way is a village of a few hundred inhabitants, which annually 
rises to the dignity of a city at the height of the cricket- 
fighting season, when the champion crickets are brought by 
their owners from far and near, and tens of thousands of 
sporting men come to gamble on the results of the matches. 
Macao dates back as a Portuguese settlement to the year 
1557, and the Guia lighthouse on the point is the oldest on 
the coast of China. Macao advertises itself as the " Monte 
Carlo of the Far East," and the expenses of the government 
are partly met by the yearly payment of .£15,000 received 
from the Chinese syndicate, which has the gambling conces- 
sion and runs sixteen fan-tan houses to suit various classes 
of gamblers. The total population is under eighty thousand, 
of whom less than five per cent are of European extraction ; 
and, while the official figures give over six hundred of these 
as being Portuguese from Portugal, it is said that the total 
number of whites in Macao of European birth is nearer 
twenty-five. There are two hotels for Europeans, — Hing 
Kee's, a " free and easy house " on the promenade called the 
Praia Grande, and the Boa Vista, built on one of the old 
forts three hundred feet above the sea. The latter is under 

101 



102 MACAO 

English management, and is a very comfortable hotel. Macao 
is a peninsula at the southern extremity of the island of Heun'g 
Shan, and our first visit was by Jerinekshas, as they are 
called here, to the barrier of Porta Cerco, the boundary 
between Macao and China. Then there was the three-hun- 
dred-year-old front facade of the ruined Jesuit church of 
San Paulo to see, and the government opium factory. 

In spite, or because, of the laws against growing opium, 
more is grown in China than is imported, and large quantities 
are exported from China after being refined at Hong Kong 
and Macao. Here the cakes of opium are kept stirred while 
they are being boiled in water ; then the liquid is filtered and 
concentrated by evaporation at boiling-point for three or four 
hours ; then stirred again until cold and of the consistence 
of golden syrup. No opium poppy is grown on the small 
rocky territory of Macao ; but more refined opium goes out 
every year than can be accounted for in the official imports 
of crude opium ; for the Chinese are inveterate smugglers, 
and opium is so easy to conceal in small quantities and so 
profitable to smuggle that insurance against risk of capture 
may be effected through some of the merchants' guilds at a 
premium of ten per cent ! 

There is a great deal of exaggeration about the evil effects 
of opium-smoking and every doctor we met in the East who 
had had opportunities of observing large numbers of opium- 
smokers agreed in the opinion that to hard-working coolies it 
was little if any more injurious than tobacco ; and it has the 
advantage of being a stimulant which enables them to greatly 
increase their capacity for fatiguing work and to accomplish 
it on a smaller amount of food taken at longer intervals. In 
addition opium is a prophylactic, which makes possible the 
cultivation of many unhealthy districts which would other- 
wise be too wasteful of human life to be inhabited. For 
export the opium is packed in metal boxes containing about 
a pound each, and fifty or sixty such boxes go to a case. 

The Chinese quarter of Macao is built entirely of brick, 
and is exceptionally clean-looking. Here we went in the 
evening to play fan-tan at one of the licensed houses. On 




Jesuit Church of San Taulo, Macao. 



MACAO 103 

the ground floor was the table surrounded by all sorts and 
conditions of Chinamen, from the barefooted coolie to the 
silk-robed merchant, playing for sums varying from a few- 
cash to hundreds of dollars. Many had slips of ruled paper, 
provided by the bank, on which they kept a record of the 
winning numbers and made their bets, as at Monte Carlo, 
on favourite "systems." The storey above was reserved for 
Europeans and a railed-off opening in the floor the size of 
and over the table enabled them to look down on the game. 
In order to participate, a fishing-rod and line with a small 
net at the end is used to lower the stakes with the number 
you desire to back, and if you are successful your winnings 
are placed in the net and so "landed." 

The courtesans dwell near the gambling dens and are sharply 
divided into three classes, — high-caste Chinese women who 
only receive Chinamen, low-caste Chinese women whose clients 
are mainly Eurasians, and Japanese women who are patronised 
by Europeans and who hope to save out of the established 
tariff of three Mexican dollars (six shillings) enough to return 
to Japan with a competency, and there to live happy ever 
after. 

The gambling propensity is so strong in Macao that we 
were quite prepared to credit the story told of the sporting 
priest who had imposed rather a stiff penance on one of his 
flock. " Father," said the penitent sinner, " can't you reduce 
the penance ? " " No, my son, but I'll toss you if it shall be 
double or nothing ! " 

We were fortunate in being able to spend Sunday in Macao, 
so as to attend service at the cathedral and see the governor 
and his suite carried to church in chairs with coolies in livery, 
and listen to the military brass band play during the mass. 
On other days there is an old time picturesque quaintness 
about Macao ; but on Sunday one seems to be carried back 
three hundred years, and it is almost impossible to realise 
that one is in a European colony at the end of the nineteenth 
century. 

The old Protestant Cemetery contains many graves of 
American naval officers, dating from 1811 to 1860 ; and among 



104 MACAO 

the English tombs are those of the Right Honourable Lord 
Spencer Churchill, 1840, and Captain Sir Humphrey Le Flem- 
ing Senhouse, 1841. The Chinese have adopted the Portu- 
guese word deus or the Spanish dios as the equivalent of 
god or gods, and the " pidgin " for the latter is joss and for a 
temple joss-house. 

All visitors to Macao go to see the pretty little garden 
and grotto of Camoens. It was here that the greatest, and 
now most popular, of Portuguese poets wrote the " Lusiad " 
during the time he was exiled to Macao, for his satirical 
writings, by the viceroy of Goa. This patriotic epic, so full 
of the sentiment of the glory of Portugal, commemorates the 
expedition of Vasco da Gama to the East Indies. The poem 
has been translated into every European language ; the Eng- 
lish translation by William Mickle, Oxford, 1775, being the 
best known. The monument in the grotto bears the inscrip- 
tion " Luiz de Camoes, born 1528, died 1580," and curiously 
enough the authorities disagree with both these dates. That 
he was born and died at Lisbon is undisputed and there 
seems to be no doubt that he died in 1579, but the date of 
his birth is variously given from 1517 to 1524. At any rate 
he seems to have spent the sixteen years from 1553 to 1569 in 
the Far East and it was there he composed the poems upon 
which his fame rests. 

The circuit of the colony is the favourite stroll for pedes- 
trians before dinner, going out by the road which passes the 
Green Island causeway, and on to Porta Cerco and back by 
" Scandal Corner " and Praia Grande. There is a prosper- 
ous cement-factory on Green Island, owned and run by Eng- 
lish merchants; and cement of excellent quality is made 
from limestone, quarried on the West River, and local clay, 
calcined with coal of an inferior quality which is bought at 
about eight shillings a ton. The forty miles from Macao to 
Hong Kong is done under three hours, and it is a very pretty 
trip steaming past the numerous islands, and the great num- 
ber of merchant and fishing junks, between the two ports. 

From Hong Kong to Shanghai we took the America 
Maru, one of the steamers of the Oriental Steamship Com- 



MACAO 105 

pany (Toyo Kisen Kahusliiki Kaisha), which sailed one 
morning at daybreak. We went aboard the previous even- 
ing in time for dinner, so as to avoid coming out in a sampan 
after dark ; for in spite of excellent police regulations which 
minimise the danger, it is not quite safe to trust yourself 
alone at night with Chinese boatmen. The America Maru 
is a twin screw steamer of 6,000 tons, built in 1898 at Wall- 
send-on-Tyne, with engines of 7,500 indicated horse-power, 
manned by Japanese with a duplicate set of Japanese and 
European officers. The effects of this dual control are un- 
fortunate. The European officers are under no obligation to 
expedite the education of the Japanese to the point where 
their own services can be dispensed with, and the division of 
authority works disastrously on the discipline of the crew, 
whose unseamanlike movements excited the derision of the 
distinguished naval officers of various nationalities who were 
among the cabin passengers. From the catting of the anchor 
to the heaving of the lead the work was slovenly, inaccurate, 
and ineffective; and, considering the well-deserved reputa- 
tion of the Japanese as good seamen on sailing junks, some- 
what surprising. 

On steamers crossing the Pacific, a Chinese crew is much 
to be preferred, as the Chinese make better seamen, and are 
more amenable to discipline. Furthermore, the Chinese 
sailors are more easily satisfied with their accommodation and 
food, and they are quite as sober as the Japanese. 

A mutiny developed the second day out when the Japanese 
stokers refused to furnish coal for the galley because the 
cook was a Chinaman. Our comfort and peace of mind was 
further disturbed by the fact that the meals were poor and 
the service bad, that the deck was cumbered with boats, that 
proper deck awnings were not provided, that the engine- 
room space was not sufficiently isolated to keep the heat from 
the cabins, that we had a heavy " list " to starboard, and that 
the ship vibrated to an excessive degree. The latter defect 
is perhaps the only one that cannot be rectified, but that from 
the point of view of comfort is a serious matter, as it was dif- 
ficult to read and almost impossible to write. These discom- 



106 MACAO 

forts did not prevent the voyage from being a pleasant one, 
owing to the interesting collection of officers, merchants, and 
missionaries, whose varied experiences of the Far East were 
the subject of prolonged conversations and discussions. 

The American naval and military officers returning from 
Manila had much to say about the war and the Philippines. 
Since the Filipino prisoners had been made to clean the 
streets and improve the sanitary arrangements of Manila, the 
health of the troops had been excellent, and they were look- 
ing very fit and standing the climate well. The Filipinos in 
the field at the beginning of the insurrection were estimated 
to be under 20,000 men, but the supply of rifles reached a much 
smaller number, and as fast as one insurgent fell another 
rushed forward to take his rifle and continue the fight. " It 
is easier to capture an insurgent than a musket." There had 
been very few casualties among the American troops from 
wounds inflicted by the " bolo," as the Filipinos call the vari- 
ous-shaped parangs and creases they carry. To the criticism 
that a bad impression was made on the Filipinos and other 
Orientals by the undress, bush-ranger appearance of the 
American troops in their slouch hats and woollen shirts of 
various colours and patterns, a well-known officer replied, 
" Our ' boys ' may not be good soldiers from the point of view 
of a German drill-sergeant nor smart-looking in the eyes of a 
British officer, but they are well-behaved men, good shots, 
and splendid fighters, and those are the qualities we want in 
warfare." The American "regular" is the best paid in the 
world, and the average recruit is over twenty-three years of age, 
and between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 9 inches in height. 
He gets $13.50, — say, fifty-four shillings sterling, — a month 
with all found from the time he enlists, and a mileage allow- 
ance from the place of his discharge to the place of his en- 
listment. Uncle Sam is generous in this allowance, and the 
soldier always manages to make some profit out of it. After 
the first two years his pay rises annually, and as he can re- 
enlist after the expiration of his original three-year engage- 
ment, he can put by a fair sum for a start in civil employment. 
Some of the returning volunteers we met had resolved to 



MACAO 107 

settle in the Philippines whenever the war came to an end, 
either as traders or as cultivators ; and there is certainly a 
wide field for the introduction of modern methods in the pro- 
duction of Manila hemp (abaca), copra, sugar, coffee, tobacco, 
and indigo, and the preparation of hides, gums, dye-woods, 
and mother-of-pearl. There was evidence of a feeling among 
the regular officers that the system of volunteer officers was a 
bad one, and that political influence had been a prominent 
factor in the matter of promotions and the distribution of 
commands. 

An English naval officer bore eloquent testimony to the 
admiration and respect felt in the Royal Navy for Dewey 
and Mahan. " Our military chaps used to chaff us," he said, 
" and say we only ran ferry-boats to place the army where 
it was needed, and the army did the rest. Now, we in the 
navy felt this must be wrong, but we were unable to make 
out our case. Mahan stated it for us, and furnished us with 
arguments and reasons. No British ship large enough to 
possess a library is without Mahan's books." Of Dewey 
he said, " Only those on the spot, as I was, can fully appre- 
ciate what he did ; and if I could change places with any 
living naval man, I should choose to be one of these two 
great Americans, — Admiral Dewey or Captain Mahan." 

The morning we left Hong Kong we steamed over to the 
Macao roadstead in a thick fog, and anchored there while 
we loaded a cargo of opium for San Francisco from a big 
junk guarded by a company of Portuguese soldiers ; and leav- 
ing there about 1 p.m. on Thursday, cast anchor outside the 
South Channel of the Yang-tsze-Kiang at 10 p.m. on Saturday, 
steaming the 805 knots from Macao against a head wind at 
a trifle over 14 knots an hour. On Friday the Chinese coast 
was in sight nearly all day, and in the Formosa Channel, 
north of Amoy, we passed through a fleet of several hundred 
fishing boats, with their oblong sails made of matting ; and 
on Saturday met a similar fleet near Saddle Rocks and the 
Steep Rock Light, a dangerous locality in foggy weather. 
As we neared the mouth of the Woosung, we saw many of 
the smart, rakish craft locally known as lorchas, with the 



108 MACAO 

fine lines of a European yacht, but junk-rigged, and having 
a smell of piracy about them. On the way up to Shanghai 
by steam-launch, we ran by the remaining gunboats of the 
Southern Squadron, whose Commander-in-chief made himself 
famous during the war with Japan by requesting the return 
of his vessel captured by the latter power at Wei-hai-wei, 
on the plea that it must have been taken by mistake, as it 
was " not his war." This squadron is one of the four pro- 
vincial fleets which together make up China's naval strength. 
Scattered up and down the river were many junks, with 
enormous deck-loads of undressed timber. Great masses of 
the cargo, reaching from the water-line to above the deck-line, 
were fastened by ropes and chains to the sides; and the 
junks so laden reminded one of fat women wearing exagger- 
ated panniers. 



CHAPTER XII 

SHANGHAI 

« The Model Settlement." The Bund. Trade and Finances of China. 
British and Japanese Firms. Merchants and Compradores. A 
Wheelbarrow Ride. Chinese Soldiers. Chinese Bravery. A Fire 
at Sea. Money. Chinese Characteristics. The Manchus. The 
Mandarins. The Merchants. The Missionaries. British and 
Japanese Influence in China. The Empress. 

Shanghai is situated on the left or western bank of the 
Woosung (or Wusung) River, and is about an hour by 
steam-launch from the Woosung Signal Station, whence our 
arrival had been telegraphed. South of the Yang-tsze-Kiang 
the only railway running in China is the short line of about 
eleven miles between Shanghai and Woosung, constructed in 
1896 and almost immediately destroyed, but rebuilt in 1898. 
In the province of Chi-li there are about three hundred miles 
of railway, with Tien-tsin as a centre ; and there is the road 
from Shan-hai-kwan to Niu-chwang, where it branches off 
to Mukden and Port Arthur. The rest of the railroads are 
on paper or "in course of construction." The European 
Settlements lie side by side ; first the American, on the 
Hongkew side of Soochow Creek, with the favourite Astor 
Hotel ; then the English, containing the Central Hotel, the 
best clubs, and the headquarters of the volunteer defence 
force, of less than 250 infantry and cavalry with four guns, 
upon which the foreign community would have had to rely, 
in case of a sudden Chinese outbreak, before the Boxer 
trouble led to foreign troops being quartered in Shanghai. 
Between the Yang-King Canal and the Walled City is the 
French Settlement, with the Hotel des Colonies, noted for 

109 



110 SHANGHAI 

its cuisine, having signs at the street corners similar to those 
in Paris and an air of sleepiness about it. The administra- 
tions of the three Settlements are conducted according to 
the laws of their respective countries, but the British and 
American Settlements are amalgamated and are in reality 
international, and all three combine together for municipal 
purposes, and, as a whole, call themselves the " Model Settle- 
ment," and can rightly claim to be the largest and best built, 
as well as the fastest, of all the European Settlements or 
Concessions in China. 

The Europeans in Shanghai number less than 7000, of 
whom about half are of the English-speaking nations, while 
the Chinese population in the Settlements and in the Native 
City is estimated at 620,000. Many rich Chinamen buy 
land and build houses in the Settlements, although it is in 
violation of treaties to permit them to do so. If you have 
visited Canton or Peking, you can omit penetrating the walls 
which for three and one-half miles encircle old Shanghai. 
The lions of Shanghai are very small ones, its smells are 
very great, and it far exceeds either Canton or Peking in 
the quantity of filth per acre it can and does exhibit. 

The Bund, as the quay running along the river through 
the three Settlements is called, had facing it most of the best 
buildings ; but running from it are broad, well-kept streets, 
containing excellent warehouses and offices, as well as luxu- 
rious dwellings. The warehouses with the windows entirely 
occupied by enormous reflectors, admitting the light from the 
top only, are silk examining-rooms, where China's largest 
export, the trade in which is twice as great as in tea, — which 
ranks second in value, — is appraised for the European mar- 
kets. From the Bund can be seen many of the house-boats 
that play such an important part in the recreations of the 
European residents, whether it be for purposes of travel, 
sport, or pleasure. They are less showy than the Thames 
house-boats in Henley week, but are made very comfortable, 
and even luxurious, by the nimble and clever " boys " who 
so quickly learn how to minister to their masters' wants. 
The countless sampans are similar to those in southern 



SHANGHAI 111 

China, but the scull used is made of two pieces set at an 
angle, instead of being one straight piece. 

But more important are the junks and steamers that bring 
the products of the country down the Yang-tsze-Kiang, and 
take at Shanghai the goods of the foreigners in exchange. 
The trade of Shanghai contributes nearly a third of the 
total revenues collected by the Chinese Imperial Customs, 
which are mortgaged for the service of the foreign debt 
raised to defray the expenses of, and indemnity arising 
from, the war with Japan, which together came to over 
X50, 000,000, and to partially secure the indemnity to the 
foreign governments exacted in consequence of the Boxer 
troubles. 

The latter indemnity was settled by the final protocol, 
signed in September, 1901, at £67,500,000, or 450,000,000 
haikwan taels, at the then current rate of 3s. This was to 
be paid off in thirty-nine years, with interest at 4 per cent, 
and the first annual payment for interest and amortisation 
was calculated at 18,829,500 taels. The previously existing 
debt required (with the tael at 3s.) about 23,600,000 taels, so 
that between 42,000,000 and 43,000,000 taels were estimated 
for the annual service of the debt until 1941, when the indem- 
nity would be liquidated. 

Almost the entire debt is, however, payable in gold, and 
the 43,000,000 taels, then accepted as the limit of China's 
power to pay, were estimated to produce at 3s. the X 6,300,000 
required to pay interest and sinking-funds (43,000,000 @ 3s. 
= £6,450,000). But every fall in the exchange value of the 
tael means an addition to China's obligations, so that with 
the haikwan tael at 2s. 7cZ., to which it has since fallen, the 
service of the debt would require nearly 49,000,000 taels per 
annum to produce £6,300,000 in gold. Or, put in another 
way, with the tael at 2s. 6cZ., the sum of 90,000,000 taels 
would be added to the total indemnity, equal to an increase 
of 20 per cent. 

In Shanghai is centred the trade of the great river valley, 
although the biggest ocean steamships can go up to Nanking, 
230 miles from the sea, and steamships of smaller tonnage to 



112 SHANGHAI 

Hankow, 400 miles farther inland ; small steamers go up to 
Ichang, 370 miles above, while at Chung King, another 460 
miles, or nearly 1500 miles from its mouth, the Yang-tsze- 
Kiang is at least three-quarters of a mile wide. 

Together the British and Japanese firms in China out- 
number those of all other nationalities combined. Of a 
total of just over 1000 foreign firms in China, the British 
are given at 424, and the Japanese at just half that number. 
The foreign residents in China, numbering 16,881, include 
6471 British and 2900 Japanese, which together account for 
about half. 

From whatever country it originates, under whatever flag 
it is transported, to whatever nationality it is consigned, the 
merchandise imported into China is dealt in exclusively by 
the Chinese themselves ; and the trade of the country always 
has been, and probably always will be, in the hands of the 
natives, whose commercial aptitude is unequalled. Every 
foreign merchant in the treaty ports has his native compra- 
dore, through whom all transactions with the Chinese are 
effected. Whether they turn out to be profitable to the 
foreign merchant or not, the compradore gets his commis- 
sion, with probably occasional commissions from the other 
party. The foreign merchant may make or lose money, the 
compradore always becomes rich. From the compradore to 
the coolie, trade is a source of profit, and the average China- 
man gives more attention to his farm and his business than 
he does to politics or religion. If labour in China was more 
systematically organised, and if native managers could be 
found who are free from peculation, and from that family 
and clan influence that forces useless names on the pay-roll, 
many profitable manufactories might be established to pro- 
duce goods that are now being imported. 

The Yang-tsze-Kiang periodically overflows its banks, and 
as recently as November, 1901, great loss of life was occasioned 
by the floods. Shanghai is supplied from this river with a 
fish called samli^ similar to the hilsa caught in the Hugli 
and the shad from the Hudson River. 

There is a novelty in locomotion to be enjoyed in Shanghai 



SHANGHAI 113 

in the form of a wlieelbarrow-ride. Not on a barrow with a 
tiny wheel in front and a suggestion of garden soil or the 
return of the prodigal, but a barrow supported and run on a 
great wheel in the centre with seats on either side. They 
are like a miniature jaunting-car, one of Dublin's famous 
" outsides," mounted on a single wheel or like a knife-grind- 
ing wheel tiu^ned on its side ; and two sober citizens with a 
fair amount of luggage may prefer to ride on one of them 
instead of the more expensive jinrickshas. In Madagascar 
the French have given the local jinricksha the descriptive 
name of pousse-pousse. 

The Shanghai wheelbarrows are not exclusively used for the 
transport of persons but may be seen loaded with the cheap and 
plentiful sweet-potato, with the long stalks of the kaolang, or 
tall millet, which grows to the height of ten to fifteen feet and 
resembles the sugar-cane, with boxes of pomaloes, the fruit 
then in season, with bales of dried fish or chests of tea or a 
live pig or two tied to the side, and patiently pushed by 
the plodding coolie. 

You may find yourself crowded against the wall in one of 
the seven-foot-wide streets of the Native City to give room 
for a mandarin's procession, the important personage seated 
unsteadily on a pony led by two retainers and preceded and 
followed by gaudily dressed soldiers bearing banners, spears, 
pikes, and even bows and arrows. When these soldiers are 
drilled in Chinese tactics, they get so many good marks for 
"looking fierce," which is quite as effective in modern war- 
fare, however, as are their obsolete weapons. In spite of the 
poor showing made in the war with Japan, European officers 
in the East generally agree that the Chinese would make 
reliable soldiers and would follow good leaders anywhere if 
they were well-fed, well-armed, and, above all, regularly 
paid. 

" The Flowery People " are as proud of their institutions 
as the Americans, and as fond of the soil of their native land 
as the French ; but they have none of that altruistic patri- 
otism which would lead them to actions for the exclusive 
benefit of the body politic nor of that military patriotism 



114 SHANGHAI 

which works for the honour and glory of the commonwealth, 
but individually John is no coward, and he can be both brave 
and courageous if he is paid for it. When he is swindled 
by his superiors out of his pay, his arms, his ammunition, and 
his rations, he cannot be expected to have much respect for 
military authority or to show much amenability to discipline. 
Since 1860, when the paid coolies held the scaling ladders 
for the European soldiers to assault the Taku forts, to the time, 
a few months after we left China, when, in the defence of the 
Legations at Peking, the friendly Chinese, amid a shower of 
bullets, cut down the trees that were in the line of fire, they 
have shown themselves capable of a recklessness of danger 
whenever they could see a sufficient immediate personal 
advantage. The very same Chinese soldiers who fled before 
the Japanese army were not afraid to run out of cover to 
pick up under fire the fallen Japanese bullets for the sake 
of the value of the lead. But a more remarkable instance 
of pluck came under my personal notice on a Pacific Mail 
steamer in the year 1877. A serious fire was discovered in 
the forehold of the vessel at about two o'clock in the morn- 
ing. It became necessary to batten down the fore hatches 
and to fight the fire by cutting a hole through the teak deck 
to introduce the hose pipes. This procedure was a partial 
failure, as owing to the dense smoke pouring from the opening 
the officers were unable to direct the water toward the centre 
of the fire. The hole in the deck was being enlarged, and 
when it was big enough to admit his body, the Chinese cabin- 
boy volunteered to go down and endeavour to locate the 
fire. He stripped, covered himself with wet towels, and was 
lowered with a rope around his waist into the burning hold. 
A minute later he was hauled out insensible, but recovered 
shortly and was able to give some indication of the direction 
the fire was taking. By this time the hole was large enough 
to admit a man's body, and one after another three Chinese 
sailors volunteered, and repeated the courageous experiment 
of the cabin-boy ; and after six hours' hard work the fire was 
subdued. 

Although the coins and notes current in Shanghai are 



SHANGHAI 115 

practically the same as in Hong Kong, the money of account 
is the haiktvan (or customs) tael (or Uang^, of 1000 li or cash, 
which is one and one-third ounce avoirdupois of si/eee (or pure) 
silver. For smaller payments between Chinese, " cash," tied 
together in " strings " of 500 or 1000, are generally used. 

In Canton, in Hong Kong, in Shanghai, and aboard ship 
the most serious topic of conversation was the condition of 
unrest then manifest in China and the causes that had led 
up to the anti-foreign feeling developing throughout "the 
Middle Kingdom." It was evident that opinion was divided, 
and that each foreign resident took a different view, accord- 
ing to his position as naval officer, diplomatist, merchant, or 
missionary. Then there was the Chinese view to be con- 
sidered in connection with all of these, and the difficulty of 
any generalisation in a country, having, with its adjoining 
dependencies, a greater area and population than the whole 
of Europe, or, comparing only the eighteen provinces of China 
proper, being larger and much more populous than the con- 
tinent of Europe without Russia, Norway, and Sweden. 
Here is an enormous population, consisting of the ruling caste 
of Manchus, — whose dynasty has reigned for over 250 years, 
and who are as different from the Chinese as the Prussians 
are from the Poles, — and the by no means homogeneous race 
of Chinese, whose characters are as various as the products 
and climates of their country, and who, although they employ 
the same ideographs to express a given idea, call them by 
more variation of names than the nations of Europe call the 
Arabic numerals, which are written practically in the same 
way in all European countries but pronounced in diverse 
manners in each language. Probably the most prominent 
mental characteristic is that mixture of pride, adherence to 
precedent, and stubborn conservatism known as wang. The 
Chinese are proud of their history, proud of their learn- 
ing, proud of their race, and proud of its virtues. These 
virtues are not the virtues most prized in Europe. Respect 
for those in authority and obedience to the laws, respect for 
their parents and ancestors, respect for their teachers and 
for those learned in the classics, are not insignificant civic 



116 SHANGHAI 

virtues. In addition they are prudish in exposing the per- 
son, peace-loving, patient, and temperate as well as indus- 
trious. As merchants they are shrewd, trustworthy, and 
honourable ; as servants, cleanly and intelligent. 

But the masses are inveterate liars, and disingenuous 
to a degree; while theft is only improper if followed by 
discovery. They are unclean in their towns and their vil- 
lages, and for the most part in their houses and their persons. 
The position of the wife in the family, with the combined 
infliction of a mother-in-law's authority and the presence of 
a concubine, leads to suicides in great numbers; and, with 
other causes, some of them economical, to a frightful mortal- 
ity by infanticide, as well as to frequent sales of wives and 
daughters. Gambling is a universal habit and is the cause 
of many other crimes. 

Their ways are not our ways, but they are engaged in the 
pursuit of happiness according to their own lights. Their 
aims are not always the same as ours ; and when they are 
identical, the mental processes are so dissimilar to those of 
a European's mind that different, and to us incomprehensible, 
means will be employed to attain ends which seem equally 
desirable to both. 

The inhabitants of the " Middle Flowery Kingdom " are 
sociable and convivial. Their greatest enjoyments centre 
around the theatre and what would be called with us " the 
table." Be it a marriage, where the delivery of the bride to 
the husband's house constitutes the binding ceremony, be it 
a funeral, be it the adoption of one relative by another, be it 
a law-suit or a festival, the feast is a necessary part of the 
function ; and where custom does not condemn some one to 
be the host, the guests will each bring his contribution in 
money or in comestibles as in the old-fashioned " surprise 
parties " common twenty years ago in the United States, when 
each participant brought his share of the " supper " to the 
house of the recipient. Then there is the festival lasting 
a fortnight at the Chinese New Year, when debts are collected 
and gambled away ; when, as in France, calls are made, 
presents exchanged, and new clothes donned; when fire- 




Chinese Woman's Foot unbandaged. 



SHANGHAI 117 

crackers are exploded to frighten away ill luck ; and when no 
reunion or feast is complete without its dish of dumplings. 

Tlie Manchus imposed tlie pigtail on the Chinese ; but they 
reintroduced the Mongol drama and tlie novel as compensa- 
tions, and the Chinese bear them no ill-will. B}'' the edict of 
February 1st, 1902, the officials were directed to gently per- 
suade the Chinese women to give up the custom of foot- 
binding. The Manchu women do not bind the feet ; and 
their husbands keep a free hand to dip into the public 
treasury for pensions authorised by law and perquisites un- 
mentioned in any edict ; and when a hand loses its cunning, 
the widow is sure to find an estate able to defray the cost of 
a coffin made of the expensive and fashionable szechuan wood. 
The privileges of the Manchus will probably disappear in 
time, as did those of the Normans in England ; but in a 
similar way their accumulated wealth will probably secure 
them an advantageous position in the official world of the 
" Flowery Inner Land " for many generations to come. 

The officials, both Manchu and Chinese, are utterly cor- 
rupt in all the lower grades; and seem to thrive only on 
injustice, robbery, cruelty, oppression, and tyranny ; but the 
ignorant masses stolidly accept the situation and entertain 
no more hostility toward the local mandarin than similar 
classes in Europe do toward the local tax-collector. If the 
screws are put on too tight, a popular agitation to remove the 
offending official may be started in the progressive native 
Press or by means of surreptitiously circulated placards in 
which the mandarin will be accused of violating ancient 
customs or even of desecrating the graves. 

An amusing instance of an inveterate habit was reported 
from Peking, where it was said that over 125 servants of the 
palace sent in claims to those foreigners who had attended 
the receptions of the emperor and empress-dowager after 
their return to the capital in January, 1902. 

The foreign merchants will tell you that the Chinese mer- 
chant is most satisfactory to deal with, honourable in his 
transactions, and prompt in his payments. When a bargain 
has been concluded and John says, " You makee book, me 



118 SHANGHAI 

makee book," he is as careful to live up to this informal 
contract as the members of Tattersall's who also "makee 
book " " on the nod." Even during the disorganisation in 
1900 the Chinese merchant lived up to his established 
reputation for commercial honesty. 

As the Chinaman is even a keener trader than the Euro- 
pean, he is sure to find his profit, and consequently views the 
foreign merchant as an intruder who is not undesirable even 
although there are certain points of class and individual fric- 
tion. Prominent amongst these are the invasion by the 
foreigner of the coasting and inland trade ; the former incurs 
the hostility of the Chinese boatmen, and the latter of the 
inland carriers and of the provincial authorities whose reve- 
nues are curtailed and whose budgets are upset. The un- 
necessary harshness and brusqueness of the European 
residents toward the natives, sometimes under slight provo- 
cation terminating in blows, is not only resented by the 
aggrieved individual, but by all his friends and countrymen, 
whose feeling of pride is wounded and sense of right 
offended. 

The missionaries complain that " the evil lives " of the 
residents conflict with Christian teachings and render the 
propagation of religion difficult where such bad examples are 
shown. As for any immorality of the foreign residents 
inter se the Chinese are absolutely ignorant of it and indif- 
ferent to it. And as to the intercourse between European 
men and Chinese women, neither the morals nor the preju- 
dices of the Chinese are shocked ; but these proceedings are 
viewed in much the same light as the souteneurs of Paris 
would look upon the arrival of an influx of visitors to 
the French capital, — inconvenient, perhaps, but certainly 
profitable. 

There is a story told of this phase of life in Shanghai in 
relation to a popular amateur who was playing the part of 
the hero in a comedy. The curtain was about to go down 
on virtue rewarded, and the heroine had fallen into the hero's 
arms exclaiming, " I am yours forever," when from the gal- 
lery, where the hero's Chinese housekeeper had procured 



SHANGHAI 119 

herself a seat, an excited voice called out, " No can do, welly- 
bad lady ; he belong my ! " 

The missionary in coming to China follows the dictates of 
his religion and conscience with zeal and devotion, at the 
sacrifice of his personal comforts and at the risk of danger 
to his health or even of his life. The language used by the 
merchant in relation to the missionary tends to confirm the 
latter's statement that the former is not a good Christian, for 
the merchant ascribes all difficulties with the Chinese to the 
presence of the missionary, and is not disposed to see his 
trade ruined and his property endangered with that meekness 
taught to be necessary by the doctrines of Christianity. He 
admits the missionary's great zeal, but insists that it is not 
accompanied by great discretion ; he sees the devotion, but 
says it is without tact ; he acknowledges the deprivations, but 
contends that the same labour and money expended in the 
slums of the big cities at home would yield better and more 
lasting results. They say that the Protestant Missions are 
satisfied if each one converts two natives per annum at a cost 
of over £100 each. The Roman Catholic Missions claim 
better results, but a large proportion of their converts are 
foundlings. In Hong Kong this proportion is about eighty- 
five per cent. 

By the Chinese the missionary is looked upon as an in- 
truder from whom no advantage is to be derived, as a 
danger to the country, as a disturbing influence in the 
village, and as a standing reproach and insult. The minor 
officials have other reasons for disliking him ; and the states- 
men who rule the provinces, as well as the court, fear him. 
Originally admitted under questionable devices, the mission- 
aries might have become honoured guests if they had been 
•qualified, and willing, to be merely teachers without being 
destroyers, — if they could have adapted themselves to argu- 
ment instead of to minatory preaching. The Chinese — 
whether followers of the code of ethics of Confucius, who 
taught the reciprocal duties of prince and subject, parent 
and child, superior and subordinate, and the negative doc- 
trine of " what you would not others should do unto you, do 



120 SHANGHAI 

not unto them," or of the teacher of Confucius, Lao Tsze, 
another philosopher of negative teaching and the founder of 
Taoism, or whether of the Buddhist religion, which reached 
China from India in the first century of our era — are by no 
means bigoted, and as they are superstitious, ignorant, and 
credulous to a degree, they are always ready to listen to the 
doctrines of a new faith. Throughout China, in the not 
uncommon San Chiao Tang or Temples of the Three Re- 
ligions, the figures of Confucius, Lao Tsze, and Buddha may 
be seen on the same altar, and there is room for a fourth ; 
but it is impossible to persuade the Chinese that it is neces- 
sary to destroy the statues of these three teachers, who hare 
been venerated for two thousand to twenty-five hundred 
years, in order to replace them by a single new one. Nor can 
you show them any real necessity for so doing. The codes 
of ethics taught by Lao Tsze, Confucius, Mencius, and the 
sages are in no way repugnant to the ethics of Christianity; 
and it is even possible for the tolerant Chinaman to be a 
follower of Confucius, a believer in Buddhism, and a convert 
to Christianity. In any case he will not bother his head 
with tenets or dogmas, nor see any deep significance in ritual 
or liturgy. 

But whatever religion he professes, or whatever school of 
moral philosophy he follows, there is one custom that over 
forty centuries have graven deeper into his heart than any 
dogma or doctrine, and that is, veneration for his ancestors, 
respect and honour for their memory, and ceremonious 
observances before their graves and funeral tablets. It is 
these ceremonies that have proved such a stumbling-block 
to the missionaries. It is true that food is placed for the 
spirits who are believed to live in the spirit-world, but in a 
similar way we put flowers on the graves of the departed; 
it is true that the Chinaman kowtows to the funeral tablets, 
but he also does so to show his respect for and loyalty to his 
superiors; it is true that the best place in his house may be 
occupied by the funeral tablets, and that the ceremonious 
care of them has a deeper hold on him than any religious 
doctrines or observances, but only in degree does this differ 



SHANGHAI 121 

from our care of ancestral portraits and the affection with 
which we preserve and install in places of honour the photo- 
graphs of the dear ones who have gone before. But the 
missionary comes and denounces these observances as an- 
cestor "worship" and " idolatry," he preaches the doctrine 
of damnation to all who have not died in the faith, he asserts 
that the Chinaman's ancestors are in hell, and kneeling 
before the funeral tablets means praying to them, and is there- 
fore a deadly sin, to be followed by eternal punishment. 

Small wonder that hatred and detestation of the missionary 
have sprung up among the common people. When you add 
to this the Western idea of the position of the wife in the 
family, which is so different from the absolutely subordinate 
position of the wife in Cathay, it is hardly surprising that 
the missionary and his doctrines are looked upon with dis- 
trust and suspicion, and that the minds of the masses are 
prepared to believe rumours of the killing of children and 
other crimes spread by officials and literati, who hate and 
fear the missionaries. Nor is it to be wondered at that the 
common people credit these accusations of ritual murder, 
since the lower classes in some European countries to this 
day believe the Jews to be guilty of them. No doubt there 
are missionaries who have been broad-minded enough to 
avoid giving offence to this deeply rooted ancestral rever- 
ence. It may be that the broad-minded ones are in the 
majority; but the narrow, tactless, and indiscreet ones are 
in sufficient number to compromise all, and to raise a feeling 
of hatred that not only extends to all missionaries, but em- 
braces all foreigners; and, as of old, the women and children 
are the most open in the display of hostile feeling. Some 
missionaries, including members of the China Inland Mission, 
go to the other extreme, and adopt Chinese customs, clothes, 
and even the pigtail, all of which no doubt flatters the con- 
ceit of the natives, and may be productive of good results. 
It must, however, be confessed that a European with red hair 
done up in a pigtail is a sight that is apt to cause his own 
fellow-countrymen to ridicule instead of respect him. 

Moreover, the missionaries, instead of trying to work 



122 SHANGHAI 

through, run counter to the literati, who exercise an influence 
over the people second only to the officials, and who as 
teachers are looked up to and respected in much the same 
way as the priests were in Europe when they had a monopoly 
of learning and of books. The literati find their position, 
authority, and influence undermined by the missionary, whose 
every mistake, error, or slip will be pounced upon and made 
much of; and, in addition, the literati will not hesitate to 
invent such stories as they think the common people will 
believe. The provincial officials have similar reasons for 
hostility and in addition suffer a loss of dignity from the 
presence of foreigners who are not amenable to the local 
laws, and of converts who are not all honest and who claim 
exemption from local observances and the protection of the 
missionary when they become involved in the meshes of the 
civil or criminal codes. A further " loss of face " was sustained 
when the Catholic priests were conceded official rank. And 
the official whose separate provincial budget and whose 
personal income depends upon the continuance of established 
customs and observances fears his revenue may be curtailed 
by the innovations introduced, like the thin edge of the 
wedge, by the missionary. 

The Central and Provincial governments have, moreover, 
the same reason for wishing to restrict the operations of the 
missionaries as was advanced in 1901 by the British Foreign 
Office in imposing restrictions on the labours of missionaries 
in the Sudan, — namely, that the state of the country makes it 
" impossible to provide for the security of the missionaries." 
In June, 1902, Chang Chih-tung drafted an indictment of 
missionary work " as spreading unrest, disloyalty, and strife 
throughout a defenceless empire." 

So far as the missionaries have successfully practised medi- 
cine, and established dispensaries and hospitals, they have 
been an unmixed good and the natives appreciate their skill 
and are grateful for services received. 

The officials, the literati, and the people are all imbued 
with the same pride of race and with the same contempt for 
foreigners, their civilisation, their mental capacity, their laws, 



SHANGHAI 123 

and their religions. Consequently, the very fact that the mis- 
sionary is permitted in the country is a ground for offence 
and his aggressive propaganda a source of perpetual irrita- 
tion. The viceroys or governors of the provinces are the 
real rulers of the people and they are not all corrupt, nor all 
ignorant, nor all entirely self-seeking ; but they all openly 
or secretly hate and fear the foreigner. From the time the 
first trade treaties were extorted every step taken has been 
forced upon China and always to her disadvantage. The 
merchant has been followed by the consul, the consul by 
the missionary, the missionary by the gunboat, and the gun- 
boat by seizure of territory by one Power and loss of more 
territory as compensation to other Powers. The history of 
India and of other Eastern countries is familiar to these 
statesmen, and they are afraid of the future and the possi- 
bility of losing their independent existence as a nation. 

They have most fear of and respect for Russia, whom they 
consider the greatest power of the West, and less hatred 
toward her than toward any other foreign nation. Whether 
this is because Russia has no active missions to protect and 
no great trade to push, or whether their diplomatists have 
been more astute or less scrupulous than those of other 
countries, is not quite clear ; perhaps all these are factors in 
the position attained by Russia. 

The death of Li Hung-chang in 1901 and the promotion 
of Yuan Shih-kai to be governor of Chi-li with the control 
of the Pei-yang fleet and army, removed one of Russia's most 
faithful henchmen and substituted an official more open to 
British and Japanese influences. Already the army was given 
Japanese instructors and British officers had been given ap- 
pointments in the navy before the treaty of alliance between 
Great Britain and Japan of January 30th, 1902, was published. 
The greatest advantage the British can hope to derive from 
this treaty lies in an increase of influence in guiding the 
opening up of China under Japanese tuition. The corrupt 
and cowardly Chinese officers, ignorant of modern warfare, 
were unable to effectively employ the troops in the war 
with Japan; but under efficient leaders it is believed that 



124 SHANGHAI 

the Chinese will make good soldiers, and it is certain that 
physically the Chinese recruits are as fine raw material as 
could be desired. But it must always be borne in mind 
that the arts of warfare may be turned against those who 
teach them, for China has been arming since the Boxer out- 
break was put down ; and some of the leading mandarins 
advocate the training of an army not only for purposes of 
defence, but as the most effectual means to resist the en- 
croachment of the foreigners and to regain the territory 
already taken by them from China. 

The war with Japan opened the eyes of the conservative 
Chinese court to the advantages gained by that heretofore 
despised power through its recently acquired knowledge of 
Western arts and sciences. The more advanced mandarins 
have begun to see the value of roads and railways for the 
movements of troops as well as of merchandise ; have been 
led by the stern logic of events to acknowledge the supe- 
riority of modern drill and implements of war; and have 
conceded that China must, at any rate in military matters, 
take lessons from the West. Owing to the identity of the 
written language and the similarity of the spoken, it will be 
much easier for the Chinese to learn from Japan and to 
receive at second-hand the Western knowledge so eagerly 
absorbed by the Japanese in recent years. In spite of the 
opposition of the " old gang " of Manchus who are resisting 
these innovations, some three hundred students had been 
sent to Japan up to April, 1902, and about the same 
month additional Japanese officers joined Yuan Shih-kai's 
army. 

The Japanese made a most favourable impression in the 
march on Peking and the subsequent occupation, not only 
on the allied forces, but on the Chinese themselves. The 
excellent equipment of the Japanese army, the strong 
national spirit of the troops, and the discipline maintained 
by the officers, when the fighting was over and a defenceless 
population was at the mercy of the victors, most favourably 
impressed the Chinese ; and the Japanese soldiers soon 
became the most popular with the natives. This popularity 



SHANGHAI 125 

is growing, and Japan's influence in China has been increas- 
ing rapidly since the death of Li Hung-chang. 

The operations of Japan and afterward of Russia in 
Manchuria do not seem to have left any permanent feeling 
of ill-will in the minds of the common people, who look upon 
Manchuria as a foreign country, as foreign as Normandy is 
to England ; but they must have grievously wounded the 
pride of the Manchu officials. 

At the head of these is the actual ruler of China, the 
Empress-Dowager Tsu Hsi, who has practically relegated 
the Ta-whang-li, or " mighty emperor," Kwang Hsu, to the 
harem, and assumed the reins of government. The empress- 
dowager was born in November, 1834, and was a concubine 
of the Emperor Hsien-Feng, the father of the late Emperor 
Tung-Chih. The Empress-Dowager Tsu An, widow of 
Hsien-Feng who died in 1861, became co-regent with Tsu 
Hsi during the minority of Tung-Chih, who died in 1875. 
The present emperor, who is a nephew of Hsien-Feng and 
was at the time an infant under four, succeeded, and the 
two dowagers continued as co-regents until the death of 
Tsu An, in 1881, when Tsu Hsi became sole regent. Al- 
though the regency has been terminated, the empress- 
dowager continues to exercise all the powers of a reigning 
sovereign. The Boxer uprising in 1900, which the mer- 
chants claim was directed against the Christian converts 
and the missionaries affirm was the consequence of the pre- 
vious annexations of Chinese territory by foreign nations, 
followed by the siege and the relief of the Legations in 
Peking, and the flight of the court, seemed to be a damag- 
ing blow to the prestige of the empress-dowager ; but the 
return of the court to Peking in January, 1902, showed that 
the empress-dowager's was still the directing hand. Recent 
events may have taught a salutary lesson ; but from peasant 
to empress-dowager, in hovel, yam^n^ and palace, amongst 
both Chinese and Manchus, there remains hatred of the 
foreigner, based sometimes on resentment for past actions, 
sometimes on irritation at present conditions, and sometimes 
on fears for the future, but always a factor to be reckoned 



126 SHANGHAI 

with in considering the course of events in China, — a 
hatred perhaps unavoidable in some degree, but certainly 
immutable. 

From Shanghai to Nagasaki is only 410 miles ; and, leav- 
ing Woosung at 2.30 one afternoon, we passed the Osesaki 
Light the evening of the following day about 7 o'clock, and 
found ourselves at anchor the next morning in Nagasaki 
harbour. 



CHAPTER XIII 

JAPAN 

First Impressions. Nagasaki Harbour. Mogi. The Bronze Horse 
Temple. The Inland Sea. Kobe. Our Guide. " English as she is 
Japped." Murray's Handbook. The Language. Money. Yoko- 
hama. Dwarf Trees. Japanese Railways. 

Geographically, Japan is most advantageously situated 
to create a favourable first impression. To travellers from 
across the Pacific it affords a welcome change from the 
deadly monotony of a voyage varying in length from sixteen 
days to three weeks, and to those arriving from the direction 
of the Asiatic continent the relief from the crowded ports 
of China must lead to comparisons that can only be advan- 
tageous to Japan. It is, moreover, in parts a sanatorium 
for European oificials in the East, and a playground during 
their short leaves of absence. In addition to its geographical 
position, it has the benefit of an extensive literature to ad- 
vertise its attractions. A clever group of missionaries and 
teachers, of both sexes, have combined to produce an exten- 
sive and extremely interesting literature, which has thrown 
such a halo of romance around Japan and the Japanese, and 
which has so prominently emphasised the good points of 
both and so sedulously concealed whatever bad points there 
may be, that the visitor is bound to be prejudiced in their 
favour. The more one reads about Japan before going 
there, the deeper is this prepossession, until one looks with 
suspicion on the few writers who criticise severely, and puts 
their strictures down to ulterior motives. If you enter the 
country, as some do, without having read anything about it, 
you will find you have unconsciously imbibed the opinions 
of those who have assimilated this literature, and you may 

127 



128 JAPAN 

even find yourself looking for prototypes of the scenes and 
people made so familiar by "The Mikado" and "The Geisha." 
You are, therefore, prepared in every way to be most favour- 
ably impressed ; you are ready to please and be pleased ; 
and if, in spite of all, you fail to be appreciative, you are 
ready at first to make excuses and to lay the blame on your- 
self. Whether you enter the country by the broad Bay of 
Yeddo with Fuji-yama looming in the background, and take 
up your moorings within the breakwaters of Yokohama's 
harbour, or whether you steam in between the green hills 
that almost encircle the land-locked harbour of Nagasaki, 
the spell remains unbroken until you leave the steamer, and 
your enthusiasm is undiminished. 

We made the Osesaki Light on the evening of April 4th, 
and entered Nagasaki harbour during the night. In the 
morning we found ourselves anchored in the bay, an inlet 
about three miles long and half a mile to a mile wide, encom- 
passed by green hills. Along the eastern shore Nagasaki 
lies extended under the shadow of the hills, upon whose sides 
are scattered the dwellings of a considerable portion of its 
population. Across the bay lie the ship-building works 
of the Mitsu BisM dockyard, recently enlarged to accom- 
modate vessels of 460 feet in length and 12,000 tons' dis- 
placement. Nearer at hand wedge-shaped lighters crowded 
with women surround the ship. The women form in lines 
to pass up the coal in small pliable rope-baskets, containing 
a few pounds only, and in this manner we take on board by 
the next morning nearly 2000 tons of coal, enough to last 
to San Francisco. Our first view of Japanese women was 
therefore not a favourable one, and when we escaped from 
the cloud of coal-dust which had begun to envelop the 
steamer and went ashore in a sampan, we were prepared for 
the ugly, pigeon-toed women, with blackened teeth and hair 
done over a dirty cotton pad, who hung around the landing- 
place. However, we were not expecting to find beauty in 
wharf-rats, and were assured of seeing the white mice 
later on. 

With the whole day before us, we began by taking jin- 



JAPAN 129 

rikislias to Mogi, a ride of an hour and a quarter each way. 
Tlie road is a pretty one, over a long hill and through a well- 
cultivated valley, surrounded by hills farmed in terraces to 
their tops, and it affords a good view of the Gulf of Shimabara, 
upon which Mogi is situated. The latter is a dirty, evil- 
smelling village, but from the Mogi Hotel, as well as from 
the little temple on the cliff, there is a view of the Island of 
Amakusa, the Peninsula of Shimabara, and the bay, which 
we enjoyed before returning to tiffin at the Belle Vue 
Hotel, Nagasaki. 

In the afternoon we visited the Shint5 temple of O Suwa, 
and saw the great bronze torii at the foot of the steps and 
the bronze horse in the courtyard, from which it is known 
as the Bronze Horse Temple. The big camphor-tree, meas- 
uring about six feet in diameter, near Daitokuji, also claimed 
our attention, and we ascended Kompira-yama, a hill to the 
north, for the fine view of the harbour seen over the cherry- 
trees which had just come into blossom. After a " peg " at 
the Nagasaki Club, pleasantly situated on the Bund, we 
dined at the Nagasaki Hotel, a new house with the most 
modern sanitary arrangements, which has about fifty bed- 
rooms, and seats for double that number in the dining-room. 
Here we had an excellent dinner of sixteen courses and 
coffee for yen 1.50, say three shillings, and afterward took 
a stroll on the Bund with the lights of the numerous vessels 
in the harbour twinkling around us. 

Nagasaki Harbour is said to be "one of the most picturesque 
in the world," and perhaps it was at one time, before the 
town on one side and the ship-building works on the other 
combined to spoil its natural advantages, say about the time 
the Dutch were relegated to Deshima, to the southwest of 
the present native town, in the year 1639. 

Nagasaki was the winter quarters of practically all the for- 
eign fleets in North Pacific waters ; but now that Russia has 
Port Arthur, Germany Kiau-chau, England Wei-hai-wei, and 
the United States Manila, it is suffering from a loss of its 
former good customers and of its former character of an 
international naval station. 



130 JAPAN 

Our tour in Japan laad been planned to begin by going 
from Nagasaki to Kagoshima, and working from there 
through Kyiishii, going north as the season advanced, and 
finishing in Yezo before returning to Yokohama. But we 
found we would miss the cherry-blossom season and the 
attendant festivities in Tokyo and Kyoto unless we went 
on at once, and we therefore continued our journey by the 
same steamer, which left about sunrise the next day. Pass- 
ing out of the narrow entrance of the bay, barely a quarter of 
a mile wide, our course lay north through the channel between 
the G5to Islands and the Island of Kyiishii, and by 12.30 p.m. 
we were going east, past the Eboshijima lighthouse, situated 
on a small, steep island to starboard. Away on the horizon 
to the north lies the Island of Tsushima, situated midway 
between the coasts of the Main Island of Japan and Korea. 
Two or three hours later we were passing through the Straits 
of Shimonoseki, between the narrow entrance to the harbour 
of the town of the same name and- the town of Moji at the 
northern extremity of Kyiishii. 

The scenery at the entrance to the Inland Sea, dominated 
by over half a dozen forts (" fowls," the British officers called 
them), is fine ; and the anchorage was crowded with shipping 
and small boats. From Shimonoseki to K5be, at the other 
end of the Inland Sea, is about 240 miles, and on this voyage 
we only saw the first quarter of this distance, going through 
the Suw5 Nada between Kyiishii and the Main Island before 
nightfall. The rough hills and serrated mountains on the 
surrounding coasts were barren-looking, bare, and brown, 
so we concluded that the beauties of this " superlative gem " 
lay ahead and would reveal themselves on some future 
occasion, and turned in after passing the Kogojima light. 
We were up early in the morning to find ourselves in the 
Harima Nada, and later in the narrow channel which leads 
into Osaka Bay (Izumi Nada), between the small island 
of Awaji and the province of Harima on the Main Island. 
We arrived at the quarantine station Kobe-Hy5go at ten 
o'clock, and went on shore in time for tiffin at the Oriental 
Hotel. 



JAPAN 131 

Kobe and Hy5go, which are now incorporated together, 
are separated by the Minato-gawa. They form a customs 
district through which forty to forty-five per cent of the 
foreign trade of the country passes. Yokohama has as large 
a share of the total trade, and is the larger in point of 
exports, while Kobe receives a heavier total in imports. 
Yokohama exports the raw and manufactured silk, and 
imports the wool and woollen yarns, as well as two-thirds of 
the increasing arrivals of sugar, while Kobe is the emporium 
of the cotton trade into which passes the raw cotton and 
from which the cotton yarns and tissues are exported. We 
had been warned that the anti-foreign feeling said to be 
growing in Japan was strongest in K5be ; but during our 
few hours' stay we saw no evidences of it, although we were 
told of many recent unpleasant manifestations. A ramble 
in the grove of camphor- and cryptomeria-trees in which the 
Shinto temple of Ikuta stands was the extent of our sight- 
seeing on this occasion, and we walked down the wide, clean 
streets to the ship, which weighed anchor at 5.30 p.m. for 
the 350 miles' run to Yokohama, for which twenty-four hours 
is allowed. 

We steamed south down Osaka Bay in the daylight, past 
the Tomogashima Light and into the Kii Channel ; and by 
midnight had rounded the southern point of the province of 
Kishii and were heading eastward for Rock Island (Miko- 
moto) Light, which we passed about noon the next day. An 
hour later Oshima, or Yries Island, whose perpetually smok- 
ing volcano, Mihara, rising twenty-five hundred feet above 
the sea, is a guide for all vessels making for Yokohama, was 
abeam. We caught glimpses of the snow-covered summit of 
Fuji-yama, across Sagami Bay and over the Hakone Moun- 
tains, before we rounded Tsuragi-zaki at the entrance to the 
Uraga Channel leading into T5kyo Bay. A couple of hours 
later we were at the quarantine station, and in another hour 
we had passed between two Russian men-of-war, lying at 
anchor outside, and had made fast to a buoy within the 
Yokohama breakwaters. Passengers from China are subject 
to rather a searching customs examination, and duties are 



132 JAPAN 

levied on all Chinese goods. Our cigars, tobacco, and spirits 
were entered free ; but everything Chinese, down to a pipe, 
was declared to be dutiable. We avoided paying any duty, 
however, by placing all our Chinese purchases in a separate 
portmanteau which we left at the customs-house, and re- 
covered when we left the country on payment of a nominal 
fee for storage. We went to the Grand Hotel, justly re- 
nowned as being the best hostelry between Colombo and San 
Francisco, and there rearranged our luggage, developed our 
plans, and made our arrangements for travelling in the 
interior. 

Before leaving England we had arranged for the services 
of Kin Nagura, who had acted as guide, interpreter, cook, and 
adviser to friends of ours in Japan. Not knowing how to 
address him I wrote to him in the third person, and here is 
his reply : — 

Yokohama, Nov. 28, 1898. 
Mk. Del Mar, London. 

Dear Sir : Mr. K , who is well known to you has kindly recom- 
mended me to you and he wrote me about your visiting Japan in the next 
Sj)ring. I have now got a letter from a Gentleman who did not mention 
his name on it, stating that you are going to leave London on the 12th 
January and expects to arrive at Nagasaki on the 1st April next, so the 
kind Gentleman wants me to await you at Nagasaki when I hear from 
you the name of the steamer upon which you will arrive. 

The Gentleman also wants me to write to him on the receipt of his 
letter to the address to which I now writing to you, but sorry to say that 
I can not find out the Gentleman's name, therefore I now write to you 
to inform you that I will run down to Nagasaki so soon as I receive your 
telegram from Hong Kong and that I will be happy very much to serve 
you for many months to come and with the most sincere wishes for the 
continued prosperity of yourself. I shall wait for your arrive with the 
utmost impatience. 

I remain, 

Dear Sir, 

Your obedient Servant, 

Kin Nagura. 

This looked as if his command of English would be suffi- 
cient for all practical purposes, even if he had failed to grasp 
the intricacies of the third person ; but a later letter written 



JAPAN 133 

when he was away from helpful friends changed our view^, 
and prepared us to find his English far from perfect. As a 
sample of "English as she is Japped" it is interesting, and 
it read as follows : — 

Dear Sir : I have received your letter of 23rd. January 1899, 1 am 
very Delightful to waiting your telegram From Hong Kong by your 
order in a Few day when I have got of your Telegram I will proceed to 
Nagasaki Immediately expect your arrival At Nagasaki, so as soon meet 
you In the Steamer. When if I could Not find you in the Steamer I will 
Inquire Hotel in there. 

About Japanese Passport, as you Ask to me I Has been to Consulate 
and inquired wish Secretary. After you arrive in Nagasaki you will offer 
the application to The your Consulate yourself. They will get it for you 
from the Japanese foreign office. 

Passport therefore can be obtained Within a few Hours at the Con- 
sulate at Nagasaki. 

Any visitor who do not offer The application to themselves, Consulate 
can not be take it (as on new Rule) So that can not Eeady for it before 
you arrive In japan. 

Yours faithfully, 

Kin Nagura. 

We found Nagura to be a man of forty-five (rather old to 
be called our "boy") who had been educated for the priesthood 
in one of the temples in Toky5 until he was seventeen years 
old, when he left to become a clerk. He had acquired a good 
knowledge of the Chinese and Japanese classics, and of both 
the Shintd and Buddhist faiths, a sound judgment in regard 
to works of art and curios generally, and a most useful ability 
as a cook. He was a clever packer, dextrous in small jobs, 
and honest and obliging withal. He was full of reminis- 
cences of the period " when I was young time," and he 
moreover had the exaggerated politeness of the old school, 
for the excess of which he sometimes had to suffer ridicule, 
but which generally helped to smooth our way and guarantee 
us favourable consideration. Like the rest of his country- 
men, he had no initiative, and no aptitude for figures. The 
addition of seven and six presented difficulties unless he had 
an abacus (sorohaifi) and the multiplication of seven by six a 
laborious task. As a guide you could trust Nagura implicitly 



134 JAPAN 

in Tokyo and Yokohama, but in travelling farther afield we put 
our faith in Murray's "Handbook for Travellers in Japan." 

Although "Murray's" has been written by enthusiasts, as 
indeed all guide-books should be, as to matters of fact, as to 
routes, as to distances, and as to hotels and inns, it is reliable 
to a degree, and you had much better follow it than local 
advice or your " boy's " information ; moreover, it is kept up 
to date by frequent new editions. It looks formidable to 
those who are strangers to Japan and the Japanese, but 
it is not really difficult to understand. But when " Mur- 
ray's " uses adjectives it runs riot ; and it is fortunate that 
the same authors are not obliged to write guides to the 
scenery and monuments of European countries, for no lan- 
guage has yet been invented that would do the latter com- 
parative justice. Scene after scene is described as beautiful, 
lovely, exquisite, superb, glorious, magnificent, splendid, 
charming, or most picturesque; particular views or land- 
scapes are delicious, entrancing, simply magnificent, ro- 
mantic, delightful, incomparable, of wondrous beauty, of 
entrancing beauty, of peculiar magic, of perfect loveliness, 
absolutely lovely, a perfect dream of beauty, or romantically 
beautiful. Temples or their decorations are splendid, lovely, 
delightful, magnificent, grand, exquisite, charming, a glory 
of art, gorgeous, a dream of golden beauty, a magnificent 
golden symphony, glorious, or exquisitely beautiful. 

We always found the view or the temple where "Mur- 
ray's " said we would ; but we would have been saved many 
a disappointment if the qualifying adjectives had been 
omitted or their place taken in the majority of cases by some 
milder one, such, for example, as "pretty." But there is 
one saving grace in all this, for if " Murray's " says that 
a district is monotonous, a place overrated, a view spoilt, or 
an excursion not worth doing, you may believe " Murray's " 
against all the world, and you will almost invariably be well 
advised. 

You will also require a hand-book of the Japanese language, 
as away from the ports practically no English is spoken, and 
your interpreter may not always be present. The language 



JAPAN 135 

is exceedingly difficult, but a smattering may be picked up 
in a few weeks, and a little " pidjin " Japanese will carry you 
a long way. You will first learn the pronunciation of the 
letters used to transliterate the Japanese words ; and you 
will notice that there is no sound of Z, v, or x. The Japanese 
have as much trouble in emitting the sound of I, as the Chinese 
have with the sound of r, which does not exist in their lan- 
guage. The Japanese learning English will say river for 
liver, and the Chinaman lake for rake, and vice versa. We 
never met a Japanese who could manage a phrase like " labials 
lisped by little lips," or a Chinaman who could repeat " around 
the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran." 

When you have learned to pronounce the syllables and to 
remember there is no plural, you will find another stumbling- 
block in the lack of tonic accent. This presents less diffi- 
culty to Frenchmen, as the tonic accent in French is always 
on the last syllable, except that ends in e mute. After you 
are able to pronounce correctly you will find daily additions 
to your vocabulary, which may begin with " good morning " 
(o hayo) and "good-by " (saronara)., and to your consequent 
enjoyment. There are certain local peculiarities such as the 
insertion of the sound of s before h and of n before ^, but 
generally a clear pronunciation according to the book will 
be at once understood. 

I am indebted to " Murray's Handbook " for the trans- 
literation of proper names ; and to Hepburn's Dictionary 
for other Japanese words. 

The next, if not the first thing to do, is to procure a supply 
of Japanese paper money. The circulating medium in Japan, 
since the demonetisation of the silver yen (or dollar) and 
the adoption of the gold standard on 1st October, 1897, is 
composed of the banknotes (dahen-ginken) of the Bank of 
Japan, redeemable in gold on demand, for one yen and its 
multiples ; subsidiary silver coins for fifty, twenty, ten, and 
five sen, nickel five-sen pieces, and bronze coins of one sen, 
five rin, and one rin. There is no gold to be seen in circu- 
lation, although the government estimates about twenty 
million yen gold in the hands of the public, and legal-tender 



136 JAPAN 

gold coins are frequently refused in the interior. Silver fifty- 
sen pieces are not commonly seen in circulation. The new 
coins, as well as the notes, bear their respective denominations 
in English, and as one yen at par is worth almost exactly 
two shillings, or about fifty cents American money, it is an 
easy calculation to convert from one currency to another. 
Ten rin go to a sen, and one hundred sen to a yen, so that 
the sum of one yen, eleven sen, and one rin is written yen 
1.111. The tiny bronze rin coins which weigh fifteen grains 
are but five-eighths of an inch in diameter, and are worth only 
the tenth of a farthing, or the twentieth of a cent ; but so 
minutely are Japanese values estimated, that even the rin is 
nominally divided into tenths and hundredths. When you 
leave Nagasaki, K5be, or Yokohama you must take sufficient 
money to last until you return to one of these ports ; and for 
current expenses you will hand a lump sum, say one hundred 
yen at a time, to your " boy," who will enter all expenses in 
a book which you will examine daily after it is written up. 
Before Japan adopted a decimal system the currency was 
much more complicated. Formerly, the standard was, as in 
China, the small round iron or bronze coins with the square 
hole in the centre which were of three denominations. A. 
The mon. B. The "bun-kyii," so called from the name of 
the era (1861-64) on the coin. This was originally worth two 
mon, but became debased to the value of one and one-half 
mon. C. The shimonsen or shimon, originally worth four 
mon, but debased to two mon. There are also said to have 
been issues of coin of the value of one-fourth mon. The 
manufacture of all these ceased at the beginning of the 
present era of Meidji. The denominations and relative 
values were as follows : — 

Shimon, round coin with square 

hole. = 4 mon 

Tempo, large oval coin with square 

hole named from the era 

1830-44 =96 " or 1 hyaku mon (100 mon) 

Shi oblong silver coin =408 " = 4-^ tempo 

Ichi-bu " " " =1632" = 4 shi 

Ryo oval gold " =6528 " = 4 ichi-bu 



JAPAN 137 

The mon is now valued at one rin, the bunkyu at one 
and one-half rin, the shimon at two rin, and the tempo at 
eight rin, so that 125 tempo go to a yen instead of sixty- 
eight. The old gold yen, or ryo, is worth exactly two new 
gold yen under the recent coinage laws. The old gold coins, 
the oblong silver coins, and the tempo are only to be found 
in the curio shops ; but the " cash " (as foreigners incorrectly 
call them) circulate side by side with the new rin. It must 
not be forgotten that the era on the old coins do not indicate 
the age of the coin. For example, coins made about 1860 
bear the name of the era "kanye" (or kwanei, 1624-44). 

More curious than the old coins are the provincial bank- 
notes of the early days of the present reign. These are 
strips of stout, almost untearable, paper 1| inch wide by 6^ 
inches long, printed on both sides. One bearing the stamp 
of the firm of Mitsui Ltd. over characters meaning " coins in 
safe place," has on the same side the local daimy5's treasury 
stamp and a picture of Daikoku, one of the gods of luck, on 
his rice-bags. On the other side is a picture of storks, a 
legend meaning " Trade and Commerce Note," and a written 
"100 mon received." Another provincial banknote has a 
picture of Ibesu, another god of luck, with the fish, and the 
date "first year Meidji" (1868) with the legend "paper 
money exchange place," and the place of issue " Seishiu, 
Yamada" (Ise). On the other side is a picture of two 
fishermen, the stamp to the receipt for "four me," below 
this a picture of a rice harvest, and the legend, " 10,000 years 
will not alter. This paper exchangeable at the rate of 64 
me for one ryo." One "me" or momme was the sixtieth 
part of a ry5, so that the banker only redeemed at a discount 
of over 6|- per cent, or he made a charge " for safekeep- 
ing " by giving a receipt for only ninety-six mon when one 
hundred mon was the sum deposited in exchange for the 
note. Similarly, when banknotes were introduced into China 
some seven centuries ago, a charge of 1^ per cent was made 
by the banker for expenses. 

Our first look around Yokohama disclosed wide streets, 
the main thoroughfares being in good order, but the minor 



138 JAPAN 

one rough and full of ruts. There are something over two 
thousand resident Europeans (which expression includes all 
whites) and half again as many Chinese. The principal 
hotels, clubs, and business houses are on, or just back of, the 
Bund, which runs southeast to northwest and faces the harbour 
enclosed by breakwaters built with the money returned by 
the United States Government to Japan some years after it 
was extorted as an indemnity for having, in conjunction with 
the fleets of Great Britain, France, and Holland, spent money 
in bombarding the Shimonoseki forts. We went to Noge- 
yama (or Iseyama), the hill near the railway station, to see 
the cherry-blossoms and the view over the town, and to look 
into the dirty little temples scattered about. Then across 
the river from the Grand Hotel there is the Zotokuin temple 
and the " Hundred Steps " to Sengenyama, where is to be 
found the famous Fujiya tea-house, whose mistress was 
reputed to be "the most charming woman in all Japan." 
Near by is the Bluff Garden and Myokoji. Farther on is 
Juniten, situated on a hill overlooking Mississippi Bay, and 
close to it a similar view may be had from the temple at 
Negishi near the race course and the cremation-ground. 

In the nursery-gardens on the Bluff we saw a great num- 
ber of dwarf pines (Jkinoki ; Thug a ohtusa)^ firs (moyni-no-ki), 
junipers, larches (tsuga; Larix leptolepsis)^ oaks, maples, 
hawthorns, cedars (sugi ; Oryptomeria japonica), saJcaki 
(^Qleyera japoniea), and hiri (^Paulownia imperialist. They 
are all perfectly developed, although only a few inches to 
a couple of feet in height, and the prices ranged from a 
shilling to £25, the most expensive being a pine-tree about 
fifteen inches high, said to be three hundred years old. 
These trees are maintained in their dwarfed condition by 
growing them in small vases, by pruning the thin old roots 
in the spring, and by pinching back the young growths in 
the early summer. 

Yokohama has few lions ; but there are many excursions 
to be made from there, and if comfort is a consideration, it is 
better to see the sights of Tokyo during the day and return 
to Yokohama in time for dinner each evening. 




S >H 



O ^ 



<J 



JAPAN 139 

From Yokohama to Tokyo is a journey of eighteen miles, 
and the fastest express, making no stops, requires thirty- 
eight minutes to do it. The ordinary trains take fifty-five 
minutes with five stops. Tiiis bit of railway, the first in Japan, 
was commenced in 1870 and opened in 1872. It is of three 
feet six inch gauge, which is the standard gauge of Japan, 
and is built on English models. The names of the stations 
appear in English characters on the tickets, on the platforms, 
in the time-tables, and on the station buildings ; and this is 
the case on most, but not on all, of the railways. 

On the 31st of March, 1900, there were 3700 miles of 
railway in operation, with over 4750 miles of track (of 
which 893 miles with 1237 miles of track belonged to the 
State) ; and 2207 miles, of which 1246 miles on the State 
railways, were under construction. For the year ending 
on the same date over 102 million passengers were carried ; 
and nearly 12 million tons of merchandise and baggage 
were transported, an increase of almost 300 per cent in five 
years. The train mileage was 26,376,018. Railways in 
Japan cost an average of about ,£6000 a mile to build, and 
only about one-third of their revenue is derived from the 
goods traffic. They employed about 45,000 men, and their 
operating expenses are about 47 per cent. Passenger fares 
on the Tdkaido Railway from T5kyo to K5be are uniformly 
one sen per mile, third class ; two sen per mile, second class ; 
and three sen per mile, first class. West of Kobe, on the 
Sany5 Railway, these are also the rates for short distances, 
but on longer journeys the rate per mile is lower. On the 
Northern Railway, north of Tdkyo, the third-class fares 
average about one sen per mile ; but the second-class tickets 
usually cost only 1|- times the third-class, and the first-class 
only 2^ times as much. As one sen is not quite the value of 
an English farthing, or half an American cent, it will be 
seen that Japan has the cheapest railway passenger tariff in 
the world. With one-sixth the mileage of the railways of 
the United Kingdom, the Japanese railways manage to have 
three times as many derailments in the course of a year. 

On the other hand, the railways in the United States, 



140 JAPAN 

with over fifty times as much mileage, carry less than six 
times the number of passengers transported by the railways 
in Japan. As in England, the trains to the capital are 
called " up " trains, and those from it " down " trains. The 
line from Yokohama follows the ancient Tokaido (" Eastern 
Sea road ") close to the coast of Tokyo Bay, through paddy- 
fields and orchards of pear-trees trained on trellises. In the 
fields are big advertisement-boards, as in England and the 
States. One which proclaims the merits of a certain cigar- 
ette bears a representation of the arms of the United States, 
which contains two stars short of the proper number, but 
equalises matters by throwing in three extra stripes. 



CHAPTER XIV 

TOKYO AND KYOTO 

Cherry-blossoms. Lettei's of Introduction. Jinrikislias. The Imperial 
Garden Party. The Emperor and Empress. " The Soul of Japan." 
The Russian Minister. Kyoto. The Cherry-blossom Dance. The 
Geisha. The Palaces. 

Our first visit to Tokyo was principally to see the cherry- 
blossoms at Shiba Park, Ueno Park, Asakusa, and, for about 
a mile along the banks of the Sumida-gawa, at Mukojima. 
The river-bank and Ueno were crowded with holiday-makers, 
and the trees were a mass of pinkish-white or pink blossoms. 
These cherry-trees (sakura) are very much like the orna- 
mental almond-trees grown in England, which are the " first 
among all trees of the wood " to blossom, and which may be 
seen in full flower around London during March. Like the 
English almond, the Japanese cherry bears no fruit ; the 
blossom varies in colour from a pink which is nearl}^ white 
to one which is almost red, and is five-petaled, with a double- 
flowered or ten-petaled variety ; and the leaves do not begin 
to appear until after the blossoms have fallen. In conse- 
quence, the cherry-trees make a better effect when seen 
singly surrounded by green trees, which afford a contrast, 
than they do in avenues where the pink blossoms look like 
so much snow on the branches. And when the blossoms are 
scattered over the ground, there is all the effect of a theatrical 
snowstorm. From the Junikai at Asakusa the avenue of 
cherry-trees in Ueno Park looked so like the smoke from the 
locomotives of the Northern Railway that it was with con- 
siderable difficulty that a distinction could be made, and 
then only by the aid of a field-glass. 

We had read that the cherry-blossoms were " something 

141 



142 TOKYO AND KYOTO 

unutterably beautiful " and " a miracle of beauty," but we 
could hardly wax so enthusiastic over them, and only in the 
sense that the same may be said of a rose, a lily, or a hun- 
dred other flowers, were we able to agree. Certainly the 
cherry-blossoms are delicate and pretty ; and in this land of 
paradoxes, where everybody pretends to love flowers and 
only the nursery-gardeners, the priests, or the government 
grow them, it may be expected that great crowds come to 
sit under the trees and make holiday. But you can see trees 
laden with blossoms that are more beautiful in any English 
orchard, and a day's ride toward the end of April through 
the orchards in the neighbourhood of London or New York 
will enable you to see more such trees than you can see in 
Japan in a month. 

Our official letters of introduction were duly presented at 
T6ky5, and we procured through our respective Legations, 
in due course, our passports (ryoko-menjo) and special per- 
mits to visit the palaces at Kyoto, the castle at Nagoya, and 
the arsenal at Tokyo. I did not present any private letters 
of introduction, as I learned from residents I met that their 
hospitalities have been so abused and letters so indiscrimi- 
natingly given, that bearers of them were almost looked 
upon with distrust. An incident illustrative of how offence 
has been given took place under my eyes on the veranda 
of the hotel. Lady in Pink, who came on the same steamer 
as we did, meets Lady in White face to face, and says, 
" Fancy, meeting you ! When did you arrive in Yokohama ?" 
Lady in White : " Arrive ! why, I live here ! " Lady in 
Pink : "Do you? I didn't know that." Lady in White : 
" That's strange, considering I gave a dinner in your honour 
at my house last night ! " Lady in Pink mumbles some 
apology and beats a retreat. A few evenings at the club 
made me acquainted with most of the men I had letters to, 
and there was then no necessity to present them. 

We visited Tokyo several times, in June and July as well 
as in April, usually going up from Yokohama for the day, 
but sometimes accepting the inferior accommodation of the 
Imperial Hotel in the capital. 



TOKYO AND KYOTO 143 

Although there are tram-cars between certain points, the 
only practical way of sight-seeing (kemhutsu) is to hire a 
jinrikisha (kuruma^ by the day. These vehicles would 
afford a perfect means of locomotion over smooth roads if 
they were provided with rubber tires. On rough roads they 
are not so comfortable. There are some two hundred and 
six thousand in Japan, of which over seventeen thousand are 
for two persons ; but the number is not increasing, and of the 
total, over a fifth are in T6ky5. The jinrikisha men (huru- 
maya)^ in their blue cotton tights and loose jackets, take you 
around at a good pace through the crowded streets of the 
city and over the country roads. 

Through the kindness of the British Minister I received 
an invitation to the Imperial Garden Party on the 13th of 
April. Two of these functions are given each year, one 
when the cherry-blossoms are at their best, and the other at 
the height af the chrysanthemum season. Invitations through 
the other Legations are sent direct, but the British Legation 
takes the wise precaution of requiring personal application 
at the Legation on the day of the fete, and in that way is 
able to see that its guests have complied with the require- 
ments as to dress and other details. 

The invitation itself is printed in black on a bevelled card, 
six inches by seven and one-half inches in size, with a gold 
border, surmounted by the Imperial crest (mo?^), the sixteen- 
petaled chrysanthemum. Enclosed with it is a printed slip 
in English, stating that gentlemen are requested to wear 
frock-coats with tall hats, indicating the gate you must 
enter by, and informing you that if it rains the party will be 
postponed until the following day, and if it then rains again 
the party will be abandoned. These are enclosed in an 
envelope embossed with the Imperial mon^ and addressed to 
you in Japanese characters, in which you probably see your 
name written for the first time. It is considered more cor- 
rect to go from your hotel in a carriage, but the humble 
jinrikisha is just as much used. The party is given in the 
gardens of the Enry5-kwan, the old summer palace of the 
Shdguns, situated on the bay, quite close to the Shimbashi 



144 TOKYO AND KYOTO 

Station. Thither we drove after lunch at the Imperial 
Hotel, and after entering the gate, where we gave up the 
printed slip, found ourselves in a gravel-covered court. A 
tent had been arranged as a cloak room, and here all wraps 
must be left, whatever the weather may be. Passing a 
bronze statue of some Japanese celebrity, we moved along 
the paths, where at every turn flunkies, dressed in the latest 
German court livery, indicated the direction we must take. 
Two bands were playing European airs, and, within certain 
well-defined limits, we were free to wander about the gardens 
and admire the pink double cherry-blossoms then in per- 
fection, to enjoy the view over the bay, to walk around the 
little lake and across it by the zigzag bridge, and to gossip 
with friends and acquaintances. 

As the hour approached for the Emperor to appear, the 
guests gathered near the pavilion, where tea and other light 
refreshments had been served, and awaited the arrival of the 
Imperial party. Informal lines were formed along the path- 
way, and presently a court chamberlain selects certain dis- 
tinguished guests to stand in the front row. The time 
for his Majesty's appearance has long passed, and it is 
evident that punctuality is not a royal virtue. Meanwhile 
there is an opportunity of chatting with one's neighbours, 
and of remarking that every one is in European dress except 
the Chinese Ambassador and his suite, who make a brave 
show in their national costumes of rich silks and embroid- 
eries. There are barely half a dozen Japanese ladies pres- 
ent, and they don't look particularly happy in Western 
attire. One dear old lady, the wife of a distinguished Cab- 
inet Minister, found both hands insufficient to keep her 
skirts from under her feet, and she was in danger of falling 
whenever she moved. The Japanese gentlemen , who were 
not in uniform wore black dress ties, as also did many of the 
diplomatists. The rare occasions when silk hats are required 
probably account for the extraordinary exhibition of old 
styles and models. For days before the Garden Party " tall 
hats " are at a premium in Yokohama and Tokyo, and many 
of those worn look from their time and weather stained 



TOKYO AND KYOTO 145 

surfaces as if they had been fished out of dust-bins or second- 
hand shops. An original effect was given to one old "stove- 
pipe " hj brushing it up the wrong way. The Japanese 
officers make a better appearance in their uniforms, which 
longer use has accustomed them to wear with greater ease. 

At length, three-quarters of an hour late, the Imperial 
party began to approach, and hats come off as the bands 
strike up the Japanese national air. Chamberlains with 
white wands of office walk ahead to clear the way, and 
around a bend in the path apjDears the Emperor. He is 
above the height of the average Japanese, and appears to be 
between five feet nine inches and five feet ten inches. He 
advances slowly and somewhat unsteadily, as if unused to 
walking. His toes are turned in, and he seems to walk 
without straightening the knees. He is dressed in the dark- 
blue, frogged, and braided uniform of a general, but as the 
court tailor may not measure the Imperial person, the coat is 
ill-fitting, and the trousers so much too long that they not 
only wrinkle all down the leg, but are only prevented by the 
golden spurs from getting under the heels. Slowly he passes 
by, saluting occasionally in response to the deep bows, ac- 
companied on the part of the Japanese by the sibilant draw- 
ing in of the breath which is characteristic of the ceremonious 
salutation. 

At a short distance behind him, walking alone, is the 
Empress Haru Ko, upon whose cold, sorrowful face flickers 
a mournful smile. Her red lips are sufficiently open to show 
that she has discarded the old custom of blackening the 
teeth. Her features are small and refined, her nose dis- 
tinctly curved. She is dressed in European costume, with 
hat and gloves, and carries a parasol. She walks, as all 
Japanese women do, with toes turned in, knees bent, and head 
and neck in advance. Born in 1850, she had nearly reached 
her forty-ninth birthday, but she did not really look her 
age. Immediately following her are a score of ladies of the 
court, similarly dressed, and walking two by two. Some 
are young, two or three are quite pretty, and all carry them- 
selves well in their European frocks, in which pale blue, 



146 TOKYO and KYOTO 

grey, heliotrope, and mauve predominate. Whether any of 
the Emperor's mekake (concubines), of which he is allowed 
twelve, were in the procession I was unable to discover. 
Perhaps the Empress's pathetic expression is due to the fact 
that she has been childless ; but the Emperor has had, by vari- 
ous mekake^ eight daughters, of whom three are living, and 
five sons, of whom the only survivor is the Crown Prince 
Yoshihito, born in 1879. As the procession passes, the Diplo- 
matic Corps falls in behind the Imperial suite, and the rest 
of the guests follow by twos and threes. Slowly winding 
through the garden under the trees, down by the shore of 
the bay, and over the zigzag bridge across the lake to where 
a long marquee is erected on its margin, we have many 
opportunities of observing the Emperor and Empress. 

The front of the marquee, facing the lake, is open except 
at the end under which the Imperial table is set. Close to 
this are a few tables for the foreign Envoys and a few of the 
most distinguished guests, and the remainder of the tent is 
one long buffet, laden with cold delicacies, which are pre- 
pared in the most approved French style, both as to mate- 
rial and cooking. Small tables are scattered under the 
trees on the grass between the tent and the lake, and as 
soon as the Emperor is seated the attack on the buffet 
commences. 

Between mouthfuls of pate and galantine an old Japanese 
gentleman informs me that it is only ten years since the 
Emperor and Empress were first seen in public together, 
that the Emperor looks better in a carriage than on horse- 
back, and that, while Emperor is now the official title, the 
Japanese prefer to speak of him as the Mikado, or to call 
him by one of the several titles derived from the Chinese, 
such as Tenshi, "the Son of Heaven," or Tenno, "the 
Heavenly Emperor." The latter is the title which has 
always been linked to the posthumous name bestowed on a 
mikado since the first mortal ruler of Japan, Jimmu Tenno 
(the descendant in the fifth generation from the Sun God-. 
dess, Amaterasu, the daughter of Izanagi, the Creator), who 
is believed to have come to the throne in the year 660 B.C. 



TOKYO AND KYOTO 147 

The present Emperor, Mutsuliito, was born on the 3d of 
November, 1852, and he assumed sovereign power on the 
25th of January, 1868, when the era of Meidji began. The 
years of the era are now reckoned from the 1st of January, 
and the year 1900 was the thirty-third Meidji. The present 
Emperor will probably be known to his successors as Meidji 
(or Meiji) Tenno, 

Although the Japanese dynasty is probably the oldest in 
the world, the present Emperor can hardly be said to trace 
his descent in a straight line through 130 generations back 
to Jimmu Tenno ; as not only was he, as were many of his 
predecessors, a son of a mekahe, but others have come to the 
throne through adoption. But the Emperor's private mow, 
the blossom and leaves of the hir% contains no bar sinister, 
nor does the official mon, the chrysanthemum with sixteen 
petals. 

To an extent unparalleled, except perhaps with regard to 
Queen Victoria, the Emperor is the personification of the 
intense spirit of loyalty and patriotism which is the greatest 
virtue and chief civic characteristic of the Japanese. Yamato 
Damashii, they call it, — "the soul of Japan," — is an 
unquestioning loyalty and obedience to the Emperor im- 
pressed upon them by their ancient religion, of which he is 
the head ; and is a patriotism which is at once altruistic, 
chauvinistic, and military ; a compound of love of country, 
national egotism, and a sentiment which finds expression in 
the popular cry, " sonno joi,'' which means " honour the 
Emperor and expel the foreigners," or in the euphemism of 
"Japan for the Japanese." 

Meanwhile the foreign ministers have risen and joined 
the other guests on the lawn ; and there is a movement 
toward the entrance of the marquee where, with the court 
chamberlains and interpreters, the Emperor presently takes 
his stand. Presentations then begin; and as each one is 
presented, his Majesty says a few words in Japanese which 
are duly interpreted; and the reply, to which he carefully 
listens, is communicated to him in the same way, although it 
is evident he understands both English and French. 



U8 TOKYO AND KYOTO 

After the Emperor the most observed of all is the Russian 
Minister, Baron Roman Romanovitch Rosen, a keen and alert 
diplomatist, young-looking in spite of his grey hairs, whose 
position in Japan, as the representative of the nation most 
feared and hated by the Japanese, is as delicate and respon- 
sible as that of the German Ambassador to France. Baron 
Rosen stands about fifteen feet in front of the Emperor, 
bows, advances three steps, bows again, takes three steps 
forward again, bows the third time, and stands erect within 
arm's length of the Emperor, looking him straight in the 
eyes. He presents half a dozen officers from the armoured 
cruiser Rossia, a splendid new vessel of over twelve thousand 
tons then lying at Yokohama. They are magnificent speci- 
mens of humanity, none under six feet two inches, dressed 
in most showy uniforms ; and make, as was doubtless intended, 
a strong impression. Some Americans are presented, and his 
Majesty shakes hands with one of them. From a distance of 
about twenty-five feet one is enabled to leisurely scan his 
Majesty's features and take mental notes of them. His fore- 
head is high, ears exceptionally large, and his face is thinly 
covered with a straggly, untrimmed beard. Like his father 
the Mikado Komei, his jaw is heavy and prominent, and the 
lips are thick and protruding, especially the under one. 
Under this mask of stolid imperturbability "the Son of 
Heaven " conceals his divine origin, his despotic power, and 
his modern statesmanship. 

In due course the presentations came to an end and the 
Royal procession was re-formed and departed, amid respectful 
salutations. Later the Emperor and Empress were escorted 
by a squadron of lancers to the Imperial Palace, built in 
1889 on the site of the Shogun's Palace in the centre of the 
city. 

Then the Japanese guests began to pillage the buffet, and 
generals in uniform wearing decorations on their breasts, 
grave officials, and dignified noblemen produced handker- 
chiefs which they filled with bits of cake and other delicacies. 
Some of them managed to procure pieces of paper for the 
same purpose, while others contented themselves with carry- 



TOKYO AND KYOTO 149 

ing away what they could in their hands. It seemed an 
undignified proceeding, and reminded one of a lot of children 
at a picnic ; but there is this excuse to offer, that it is the 
Japanese custom for the host to give or send to each guest 
the food he leaves unconsumed at the feast, and these gifts 
are accepted as a matter of course. 

From T5ky6, the "Eastern Capital," we went down to 
Kyoto, the " Western Capital," which was the seat of the 
nominal government for over a thousand years. The journey 
of about 310 miles took fourteen hours by the " Eastern 
Seacoast Railway" QTokaido Tetsudo}, which closely follows 
the highroad connecting the two cities. There was not 
much of interest to be seen, as it rained all day. The hill- 
sides looked barren; but the valleys are well cultivated, and 
there were pleasant dashes of colour where the yellow rape 
(ahurana) was in blossom. From the rape seed (natane) is 
pressed the oil (mizu-ahura) used in ceremonial and religious 
lamps. There were softer tints from the fallow paddy-fields 
which were covered with the tiny lilac blossoms of a species 
of clover Qgengehand). Near Yokohama, and notably at 
Hodogawa, the first station after, the ridges of many of the 
thatched houses were like miniature flower gardens, and the 
purple sweet-flag (sliohu) waved above like the feathers in a 
general's hat, while at Gotemba, the highest point on the 
line, 1500 feet above the sea, red camellias were in bloom. 
After passing Hamamatsu, above halfway to Ky5to, many 
of the houses are surrounded by tall, well-clipped hedges. 
On the hills near Lake Biwa some snow was still to be seen. 
In other respects the country, with its scattered houses 
thatched, tiled, or covered with split bamboo, is uninterest- 
ing, unless fine weather enables you to get more extended 
views. Those who had failed to supply themselves with 
luncheon had an opportunity of partaking of a Japanese 
lunch (bento^ of boiled rice and pickled vegetables, and of 
trying to eat it with chopsticks (hasJii) . After the luncheon- 
hour the guard came in and swept up the cars with a small 
brush and dustpan. A recent fire having destroyed Yaami, 
we went to the Kyoto Hotel; but the insanitary condition 



150 TOKYO AND KYOTO 

of the building and the insolence of the proprietor determined 
us to patronise a Japanese inn on our return. 

The evening after our arrival in Kyoto we saw the famous 
cherry-blossom dance (miyako-odori ; literally, " the dance of 
the capital"). Before entering the theatre proper, we were 
admitted to a large room where we were served with tea in 
the formal fashion of the eha-no-yu. Attended by half a 
dozen children, the tea-maker, with careful observance of 
ancient forms, took the powdered, green Uji tea from the 
tea-caddy (^cha-ire) with the wooden spoon (cha-shahu) and 
made a thick gruel of it with the aid of a whisk {cha-seirh). 
"When each had been served with this concoction in a 
lacquered wood tea-bowl (^cha-wan), it was the correct thing 
to gulp it down in three swallows — no more and no less. 
After the tea-ceremony we found our places in the theatre, 
and shortly afterward the dance began. On either side of 
the stage are the platforms, about three feet wide, level with 
the stage and running from it through and to the back of the 
audience, called the hana-micM (" flower walks ") and along- 
side these were seated, on one side, nine samisen and koto 
players, and on the other an equal number of performers on 
drums. The samisen with three strings, an oblong head, 
and long neck is played with a plectrum (hashi), while the koto 
is something like a zithern. The drums are of two kinds ; 
one, the tsuzumi, shaped like an hour-glass and held and 
beaten with the hand, and the other, the taiko, a sort of 
kettledrum beaten with sticks. These eighteen players, who 
at any rate beat the time with precision, even if they failed 
to elicit anything in the nature of melody or harmony, 
formed the orchestra. Then the dancers appear, making 
their entrance with a heel and toe walk. There is much 
stamping, swaying of the body and arms, posturing and 
manoeuvring with fans, as well as crossing and re-crossing 
in line of the thirty-eight maiko, as the geisha in Kyoto are 
called. The movements of the body are slow, easy, and 
graceful, and the arms are managed with care; but the 
"dancing" is only from the waist up, while the legs are 
awkward, and the feet remain flat on the ground. The 



TOKYO AND KYOTO 151 

scenery on the main stage is excellent, and is rapidly and 
frequently changed. These maiko, who are considered the 
most accomplished geisha in Japan, go through their parts 
in deadly earnest, without the shadow of a smile. They are 
dressed in rich, old-fashioned costumes only to be seen, in 
Japan of to-day, in the theatres or the houses of prostitution. 
They are so thickly coated with paint and powder that it is 
difficult to see if there are any pretty ones ; but they are all 
small, dainty -looking girls, with fine, delicate hands, and they 
all seem to be about sixteen years of age. Most of them 
have been trained frodi the age of six or eight, and make 
their first appearance in public at the age of twelve. They 
are apprenticed by their parents for a long term of years, 
and when their dancing days are over are reduced to playing 
the music for others to dance. 

The geisha are as a rule frail, but they must not be con- 
fused with the licensed prostitutes Q'oro, oiran, shogi, or ^ujo^ 
who in former times were obliged in public to wear their 
sashes (o5^) tied in a bow in front, instead of in back, and 
who wore in their hair more than three long pins, a number 
never exceeded on the head of a reputable woman. As a 
matter of fact, the geisha's position is not very different from 
that of actresses in some European capitals. She is accom- 
plished, and she may be virtuous, but she is subject to con- 
tinual temptation, and frequently yields. The gilded youth 
seeks her company, and is proud to hear his name linked 
with some popular favourite. Sometimes she is fortunate 
enough to find a rich husband, and she then reaches the 
summit of her earthly ambitions. 

Our permits, ruled in ten lines and stamped with many 
official seals, gained us admission to the Gosho and Nijo 
palaces. Both of these are beautifully kept up and scrupu- 
lously clean, but are far from comfortable residences. One 
is reminded in the Gosho of the sacrosanct character of the 
Mikado by the throne behind whose red, white, and black 
silken curtains he used to sit concealed; by the fact that 
the buildings are constructed of the same species of pine, 
the hinoM, used in building the Shinto temples, and by the 



152 TOKYO and KYOtO 

curious old form of shingling a foot or two thick made from 
the bark of the same tree. The sliding screens between the 
rooms made of wood or opaque paper (^fusuma) are decorated 
by various artists, and the wild geese in the G-an-no-ma are 
particularly good. There is more to be seen at the Nijo in 
the way of works of art and decorations ; and the massive 
walls of this, the older, castle with its handsome carved gates 
are more impressive. Here are carvings by Hidari Jingoro, 
paintings by artists of the Kano school, and metal-work of 
rare skill and workmanship. The paintings of willow-trees, 
pine-trees, and double cherry-trees in blossom, are particu- 
larly fine, and the carved openwork ramma, which take the 
place of a frieze above the fusuma, with designs on both 
sides which are quite different from each other, are ingenious 
and well-executed. Naonobu's painting of a heron standing 
on the side of a boat is known not only for its art, but from 
the fact that it served as a notice board during the time the 
Nij5 was used as a prefecture. The most lavish decorations 
are to be found in the " Shoguns' Audience Room " and the 
" Ambassadors' Room" ; the latter with an exceptionally fine 
coffered ceiling. 

Near the Mikado's palace are the buildings of a Christian 
University, founded by the American Board of Missions, 
called the D5shisha. The buildings are uninteresting, but 
the controversy that has raged around them, the quarrel 
between the Americans and their Japanese co-religionists 
over their control, and the abuse heaped upon the Japanese 
who won the day, are instructive object lessons in missionary 
work. 



CHAPTER XV 

RELIGION IN JAPAN 

A Promising Field. JSTo Love lost. Japanese Ingratitude. Kyoto 
Temples. Shintoism. Buddhism. Pilgrimages. Curious Resem- 
blances. The Shin-shu Buddhists. Holidays. Manji and Tomoye. 
A Fire. Shops. Cloisonne. The Rapids of the Katsura-gawa. 
Tea. 

Heakn says, " it is not easy to escape the conclusion that 
the whole work of foreign mission societies has been little 
more than a vast expenditure of energy, time, and money, to 
no real purpose." Of the Japanese he speaks of those 
" ready to profess conversion for the sake of obtaining pecu- 
niary assistance or employment," of those pretending to 
become Christians " for the sake of obtaining instruction in 
some foreign language," and of those who make professions 
of Christianity for temporary purposes. He might have 
mentioned those who embrace Christianity for the purpose 
of studying its doctrine and dogma in order to be able to 
more effectually combat them at a future time. Even these 
nominal conversions are believed to have declined in number 
since the reaction of 1888 against the craze for imitating 
everything foreign, in spite of the wholesale conversions 
announced from time to time, such as those to the number of 
nearly nine hundred claimed to have been recently made in 
a few days by the Y.M.C.A. Mission. 

Yet no more promising field for missionary labour can be 
imagined than that which Japan seems to offer. The Japa- 
nese are tolerant and curious, they love an argument, and 
they respect learning. Their ancient religious beliefs are 
not so deeply rooted as to be offended by the intolerance of 
the missionary, or his hostility to all religions save his own. 

153 



154 RELIGION IN JAPAN 

They are willing to honour the ability of a wise teacher who 
can maintain his ground in argument, or to be amused at the 
ineptitude of one who gets the worst of it. They are keenly 
alive to the material advantages conferred by the mission- 
aries in the shape of schools and charities. Further, they 
see no more necessity of forsaking Buddhism when they 
profess Christianity than they did of forsaking Shintoism 
when Buddhism was adopted ; rather less, in fact, as the 
Japanese at first mistook Christianity for a form of 
Buddhism, and still find great similarity between them. 
And the missionaries have found in Japan physical comfort 
and safety, while Japanese diplomacy has carefully seen that 
they do not become the cause of international friction or of 
political agitation. 

The Rev. R. B. Peery, of the Lutheran Mission, in his 
book, " The Gist of Japan," published in 1897, gives an 
extended account of missionary work in Japan. He vents 
his indignation against the foreign communities, and, curi- 
ously enough, against those members of it who are the most 
severe critics of the missions. " These communities," he 
says, " are largely composed of merchants and of those con- 
nected with the various consulates, most of whom have come 
here for purposes of gain, and are interested in nothing 
besides money-getting. A large per cent of this population 
is very undesirable." He naturally finds his critics "are a 
hindrance to the work of evangelisation " ; and he adds, 
" To say nothing whatever of the charges of immorality and 
dissoluteness preferred against the men, they are certainly 
not Christians." The merchant does not criticise the morals 
of the missionary, his religion, or his sincerity, and seldom 
calls in question his ability ; but judges the missionary's 
work by results, declares it a failure, and contends that the 
vast sums annually spent on the missions could be more use- 
fully spent in the countries where they are subscribed. And 
the merchant finds that the missions tend to become little 
beyond mutual benefit and admiration societies. Dr. Peery 
urges that the missionary should have the best of everything, 
and be paid a liberal salary, and he gives many interesting 



RELIGION IN JAPAN 155 

details of missionary work and results : " Higher criticism 
and speculative philosophy," he says, "have largely sup- 
planted Christian teaching." " The most common attitude 
of the Japanese public toward Christianity," he declares, " is 
one of absolute indifference." He states that " in nearly 
every mission field, as soon as a strong native church is de- 
veloped, misunderstanding and friction between the native 
and foreign workers have arisen." And he asserts that most 
of the valuable property of the American Board of Missions 
"has passed into native hands, and in some instances has 
been perverted from its original purpose." Dr. Peery finds 
that " educational work is welcomed by the natives, while 
evangelical work is unwelcome." The mission schools cost 
the various boards "more money than all the evangelistic 
work that is done in Japan. More missionaries are engaged 
in educational than in evangelistic work." " More than half 
the mission schools in Japan are boarding-schools for girls." 
" In many of these schools the girls are kept for twelve to 
fourteen years. During all this time they are more or less 
supported by mission funds, even down to pin-money." 
Since the government has established better schools, particu- 
larly for boys, it is found that the " students who formerly 
flocked to the mission schools now flock to those of the gov- 
ernment, and the former have but few pupils." 

Dr. Peery complains of the ingratitude of students and 
converts, and says the life of the missionary is full of disap- 
pointments. " Boys who have been educated on his charity, 
who are what they are solely by his help, will frequently be 
guilty of base ingratitude, and, worse yet, will repudiate his 
teachings." Dr. Peery admits that in recent years losses 
of converts have almost equalled the gains; but in spite of 
all these admissions he reaches the conclusion, which the 
Japanese who have enjoyed their educational advantages will 
no doubt support, that "Japanese missions have been a brill- 
iant success." 

There are a number of interesting temples in Ky5to to be 
visited; and many days may be spent in and about them. 
Most of them contain artistic treasures which may be seen 



156 RELIGION IN JAPAN 

by making judicious offerings at the shrines. The Buddhists 
of various sects boast the greater number of large temples 
and monasteries. The nine principal sects of Buddhists in 
Japan are divided into thirty-six sub-sects, which compares 
favourably with the "seventy-two sects of Islam" and the 
hundred sub-sects of Christians known in the United States. 
The quaintest of all the temples is perhaps the dingy old 
Kiyomizu-dera, on the hills overlooking the city, with its 
bare floors of earth. The platform of the main temple Qiondo) 
is supported, overhanging a ravine, on a permanent scaffold- 
ing, while on the opposite hill the main shrine (oku-no-iri) is 
similarly supported on piles. There is a collection of small 
stone images of Jizo, the patron saint of children and 
pregnant women, arranged on shelves ; and when the good 
Kydto wife desires to become a mother, she selects one of 
these images to address her prayers to, and when she is safely 
delivered, shows her gratitude by tying a bib around the neck 
of her particular Jizo. The large number of bibs with which 
all the images are decorated fill one with respect and admira- 
tion for the men of Kyoto. 

In marked contrast to this popular and rough-looking 
temple is the Higashi Otani, prettily situated on the hills 
and approached by an avenue of pines. The rich, but simple, 
gold altar in the hondo, the carved gate to the tomb, and 
the bronze fountain in the courtyard are works of art entirely 
out of the common. 

Then there is Ginkakuji (" Silver pavilion ") which was 
never of silver, but which has fusuma painted by well- 
known artists, and boasts the original square tea-ceremony 
room of four and one-half mats. Booms in Japan are 
measured by the number of mats with which the floor is 
covered, and as all mats are made of the same size, as near 
as possible three by six feet, it will be seen that a room of 
four and one-half mats contains eighty-one square feet, and 
is therefore nine feet square. Here, with the proper sur- 
roundings, we saw the ancient forms and ceremonies gone 
through by the priest who officiated. 

Kinkakuji, as its name implies, once had a pavilion covered 







H -^ 



o E 



RELIGION IN JAPAN 157 

with gold, of which to-day only a few squares of leaf under 
the eaves bear a faint witness to its former glory. But there 
is a miniature lake filled with carp, and a garden that rivals 
the sand-heaps of Ginkakuji. The art treasures here are 
varied, and so numerous that examples shown to the public 
are changed every ten days during the year. 

The temple called San-ju-san-gen-d5, with its thousand 
life-sized gilt images of Kwannon, is indeed "a wholesale 
warehouse of sacred images." It is said that no two of the 
images are alike, but the differences are small. In the tem- 
ple enclosure is the Daibutsu, or great Buddha, built up of 
wood, and showing the head and shoulders, which rise fifty- 
eight feet from the floor. Except for its size and ugliness, 
it is not noteworthy. But there is a great bell hanging 
close by which we had rung for us. It is about fourteen 
feet high, and is said to weigh sixty-three tons; while the 
other big bell in Kyoto, in the Chion-in monastery, is said to 
weigh seventy-four tons. The latter is thicker, and con- 
tracted at the lips, so that its greatest diameter is not at the 
lowest part, and both bells are rung by being struck outside 
near their centre with a swinging beam of wood suspended 
horizontally. The view from Chion-in is very pretty, and 
the temple buildings are on a large scale. 

To the monastery of Kurodani we went to admire the pine- 
trees trained in front of the temple, to see the wonderful 
gold-embroidered altar-cloth, and to be shown numbers of 
paintings and kakemono by the intelligent old monk who 
acted as our guide. More kakemono and some fusuma 
painted by Kano Tan-yii rewarded our visit to Daitokuji ; 
carved wooden statues drew us to Kdryuji ; cherry-blossoms 
were the attraction at Ninnaji ; some carvings of Kobo Daishi 
and some old lacquer caused us to visit the dilapidated Toji, 
and we went to Seirydii to see the ancient Indian image of 
Shaka, reputed to be nearly one thousand years old. Here 
we saw an ancient religious dance executed. At the large 
and well-kept temple of Myoshinji, where we had small ex- 
pectations of seeing anything of interest, we found some 
artistic kakemono and fusuma, a pine-tree planted thirty 



158 EELIGION IN JAPAN 

years before America was discovered, and a curious well, 
guarded by a dragon. 

The two great temples of tlie Monto-sbu Buddhists, the 
Higashi (Eastern) Hongwanji and the Nishi (Western) 
Hongwanji, lie close together. They are among the largest 
temples in Japan, and are kept in a state of repair and 
cleanliness unusual in Japanese temples. The Higashi, 
which is the larger and newer of the two, has a main build- 
ing (^daisM-do') which covers an area of over thirty-five 
thousand square feet and rises 120 feet above the ground, 
magnificent proportions for a wooden building of a single 
storey. It contains, among other decorations, twelve ramma 
splendidly carved in full relief, and there are nine similar 
ramma in the subsidiary Tcodo. Suspended under the temple 
eaves there is a great cable, over two hundred feet long and 
four or five inches in diameter, composed entirely of the hair 
of women too poor to make any other offering to the temple, 
and too devout not to make some sacrifice. Most of the hair 
is jet black, but here and there can be seen the grey or white 
from the heads of the aged. There can be no doubt that 
although Shint5ism is the " official religion," Buddhism is 
the most popular. But the modern Japanese of the upper 
class are frankly atheistic, and the lower classes are, if not 
irreligious, certainly intensely superstitious. 

Shintdism, the ancient faith of the Japanese, is in reality 
a collection of precepts and maxims, apparently derived from 
the code of Confucius (who is known in Japan as Koshi) 
and his predecessor and teacher, Lao-tsze, the founder of Tao- 
ism — meaning "The Wa}^" So Shintoism is called "The 
Way of the Gods" (kami-no-michi)^ and, like Confucianism, 
and the most ancient religion of Rome, inculcates the rev- 
erence of ancestors. Shintoism has no dogma, and no code 
of morals ; but its philosophy teaches that each man's con- 
science is his best guide, and it enforces obedience and sub- 
mission to parents and superiors as the highest and most 
essential virtues. Obedience to the Emperor comes first ; in 
former times loyalty to the daimyo^ or feudal chief, came 
second; and submission, to parents and teachers followed. 



RELIGION IN JAPAN 159 

Confucianism further teaches the reciprocal duties of supe- 
riors to inferiors. Mr. Gubbins quotes Professor N. Hozumi 
as holding " that ancestor worship was the foundation of the 
Japanese family system, and that Chinese civilisation and 
feudalism are to be regarded simply as factors in its develop- 
ment," and adds that "his view is shared by other scholars." 
Shintoism has innumerable deities (kami)^ but no idols ; and 
its three emblems, the mirror, the sword, and the precious 
stone, may be taken to represent truth, courage, and wisdom. 

The myths connected with Shint5 deities have little hold 
upon the Japanese people of to-day, and are looked upon by 
the educated Japanese as fairy-tales for children; but as 
Grote says of the Grecian myths of twenty-six hundred years 
ago, " they constituted at the same time the entire intellectual 
stock of the age to which they belonged. They furnished ali- 
ment to the curiosity and solution to the vague doubts and 
aspirations of the age ; they explained the origin of those cus- 
toms and standing peculiarities with which men were familiar ; 
they impressed moral lessons, awakened patriotic sympathies, 
and exhibited in detail the shadowy but anxious presentiments 
of the vulgar as to the agency of the gods ; moreover, they 
satisfied that craving for adventure and appetite for the 
marvellous which has in modern times become the province 
of fiction proper." 

Buddhism, travelling from India through China and Korea, 
reached Japan in the sixth century of our era, and rapidly 
became the popular religion. While the Emperor himself, 
as descendant of the Sun Goddess, is liead of the Shinto 
hierarchy, and while Shint5ism is the recognised State reli- 
gion, a prince attached to the court occupies a similar 
Buddhist function ; and, in spite of the greater number of 
Shinto temples (miya^ jinja or yashiro^ and the State support 
enjoyed by some of them, the Buddhist temples (tera ot ji) 
have the greatest number of worshippers ; the blue- or black- 
robed Buddhist priests (honze) outnumber the white-robed 
Shint5 priests (hannushi) ; and in 1898 the Buddhist semi- 
naries had 13,922 pupils, as compared with only 614 pupils 
being educated by the Shint5 priests. The great mass of the 



160 RELIGION IN JAPAN 

lower classes profess Buddhism, which appeals to the emo- 
tional side of their cliaracter, while they also cling to the 
precepts of ShintoiSffi as a guide for the more prosaic details 
of life. Nearly all classes are buried according to Buddhist 
rites ; and cremation is almost universal among the lower 
classes. Judging from the enormous number of pilgrims 
continually visiting both Shinto and Buddhist temples, the 
Japanese should be considered a deeply religious people ; but, 
as a matter of fact, the people do not take their religion very 
seriously, and the majority would probably be prepared to 
change it at any time in obedience to an Imperial edict. 

The temple pilgrimages are merest pretexts for a day's 
outing. After the customary four hand-claps before a 
Shinto shrine with an offering of the smallest coin, a rin 
(worth about the tenth of a farthing), and a similar offering 
and act of devotion before the Buddhist altar, the rest of the 
day will be devoted to pleasure, or perhaps to dissipation. 
To facilitate the latter, inns of a questionable character are 
established at the temple gates, and in some cases within the 
temple grounds. As a Japanese acquaintance said, "my 
country -people go to the temples half to pray and half to 
play ; and because they never spend to-day what they gained 
yesterday." Which meant that they cannot wait a day if 
they have money to spend. But a great deal more than half 
the time is devoted to amusements which may, however, 
include the leaving of visiting cards Upon the tombs of 
departed heroes, an offering for the privilege of ringing the 
great bell by swinging the horizontal beam suspended close 
to it, or the paying for the services of a professional fortune- 
teller. The time spent in prayers to the gods (inori) is 
small indeed. 

From the time of the first missionaries to the East the 
resemblance has been noted between the Buddhist and 
Roman Catholic liturgy, symbols, and ceremonies. The 
resemblance of outward forms is strikingly curious and com- 
plete ; and there are also among the Buddhist gods (Jiotohe) 
two who have some of the attributes of the Saviour and the 
Virgin Mary. Jizo, the lover and protector of children, occu- 



EELIGION IN JAPAN 161 

pies but a minor position in the Buddliist pantheon, although 
his images are more numerous and popular than any deity in 
Japan. Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, the Saviour of 
mankind, who intercedes for the penitent, succours the 
afflicted, protects the weak, and entertains the supplications 
of the distressed and erring, is worshipped not only at the 
thirty-three temples in the provinces surrounding Kyoto, 
but at many other shrines throughout the empire. At the 
principal gate to the temples sacred to Kwannon stand fero- 
cious stautes (nio} of King Indra and King Brahma, gener- 
ally covered with small wads of paper chewed into balls by 
those who wish for good luck, and blown from the mouth in 
the hope of their sticking to the statue and so insuring a 
favourable response. In China Kwannon is known as 
Kwanjin or Kwang-yin, and is represented carrying a 
babe. 

In Japan Buddhism is divided into nine principal sects 
(sAm), split up into four times as many sub-sects. The most 
powerful sect, which owns twenty-seven per cent of the 
Buddhist temples as well as the largest and finest of, them 
in the country, is that of the Shin-shii or Monto-shii Buddh- 
ists. The great Hongwanji temples of Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka, 
and Nagoya belong to this sect, and many ladies of the higher 
classes, as well as a proportion of both sexes of the mercantile 
class, adhere to its tenets. On questions of dogma or doc- 
trine the lower classes are, as a rule, profoundly ignorant ; 
but they know that the priests of other sects violate their 
professed precepts, which enjoin chastity, the abstaining from 
animal food, the preservation of animal life (which prevents 
even the wearing of silk), fasting, penance, and pilgrimages. 
The Shin-shii priests are relieved from these observances, and 
are free to marry ; and they gain converts from other sects 
whose priests do not always practise what they preach. 
The Buddhists' canon used by the Japanese priests is a 
Chinese version, and at one of the temples dedicated to 
Kwannon we listened in one of the temple rooms to an old 
bonze expounding the articles of belief to a mixed audience 
of men, women, and children. To the right of him sat the 



162 EELIGION IN JAPAN 

women, to the left the men, and in the surrounding passages 
the children. 

There is no weekly day set apart in Japan for religious 
observances ; in fact, the week was unknown in ancient 
times ; but the government offices are closed on Sundays, 
and not only is this day set apart for rest and recreation, 
but the Saturday half -holiday is also being introduced. The 
1st, 15th, and 28th of the month are usually observed at the 
temples as religious festivals. On these days rice and sake 
are placed on the family altar, which is before the ancestral 
cenotaphs in Shinto households, and there also are placed 
sprigs of the sacred sakaki. The Buddhists place the ceno- 
taphs on the altar, and daily offerings are made of rice, 
tea, and flowers, while incense sticks are lighted every 
morning ; and they annually place flowers and twigs of 
anise (shikimi) on the ancestral tombs. The toko-no-ma, 
where the altar, or " God-shelf," is placed, is regarded with 
reverence, and one must not sleep with one's feet toward 
it ; while in accordance with other superstitions, you must 
not sleep with your body pointing north or north-east, so that 
my " boy " always consulted his compass when spreading out 
my bedding, in order that I might sleep in a lucky position. 

There are two symbols frequently used in the decorations 
of Japanese temples which have been widely employed in 
other countries. One is the manji used as a personal orna- 
ment by the Romans and frequently dug up in the Roman 
ruins scattered over Europe. It is the haken-kreuz of the 
Germans, and the Anglo-Saxon fylfot (feower fot or four 
feet). Webster defines it as "a rebated cross, formerly used 
as a secret emblem. It symbolised, by the junction of four 
Greek capital gammas, Trinity in unity, and by its rectagonal 
form the chief corner stone of the Church." It is also re- 
garded as a sign of submission from its resemblance to 
bended knees. It may be seen sculptured on the stole of 
Bishop Edyndon's effigy of the fourteenth century in his 
chantry in Winchester Cathedral ; and it is known in India 
as the svastika, and has been found in Egyptian, Etruscan, 
and Greek remains. The other symbol, said to be of Chi- 



RELIGION IN JAPAN 



163 



nese origin, and according to Freeman-Mitf ord " the Symbol 
of Yang and Yin, the universal male and female principle 
of creation," is the tomoye, a comma whose tail forms a circle, 
which has a double and also a triple form. The latter, the 
mitsu tomoi/e, is the most common form, and consists of three 
commas whose tails form arcs or segments of a perfect circle. 
I have a photograph of a wooden chest of the fifteenth century- 
carved with this emblem, and it may be seen upon the lintel 
stones of houses in the Basque Provinces, 



FUTATSU TOMOYB. 




Manji. 



The chief attractions of the Shinto temples in Kyoto, as 
throughout Japan generally, are the natural advantages of 
the sites upon which they are built, and the splendid groves of 
trees with which they are surrounded. This is particularly 
the case with Shimo-gamo, although the two sakaJci, outside 
the main gate, which are said to be joined by a branch 
growing from one trunk to another, are certainly not so joined, 
if we can trust our eyes. The view from Ota Nobunaga and 
the ex-voto sheds at Tenjin Sama were worthy of a passing 
glance. The peculiar gateways (torii) of two uprights and 
two cross-pieces which guard the approach to the Shinto 
temples are familiar objects in pictures of Japan. 

We had a fine day for our view over the city from the 
Yasaka Pagoda ; and a similar night, without a breath of 
wind, to watch the efforts of the local firemen in trying to 
put out a fire only a short distance from the hotel. Although 
it was a perfectly clear night, the streets were crowded with 
people running to the fire, each man carrying a lantern. If 
each one had brought a bucket of water the whole affair 
would have been out in a moment. However, by dint of 
pulling down adjacent buildings, the fire was confined to two 
houses, which were burnt to the ground. 



164 EELIGION IN JAPAN 

We deferred our shopping until a subsequent visit to 
Ky5to, when we bought cloisonnd from Y. Namikawa and 
O. Komai; metal-work from Shoj5d5 and N. Nogawa; 
hirodo-yuzen, the ribbed silk upon which a picture has been 
painted, the shadows of which are then cut so as to form 
velvet, from Daimarichi; toys from S. Misaki; embroidery 
from S. Nishimura, lacquer from Shimadzu and H. Nishimura ; 
fans from Nishida ; silks from Takashima-ya ; and carvings 
from Benten. We also bought a lot of very pretty bamboo 
boxes from Wada; but most of them fell to pieces before 
we left the country, and none survived three months in Eng- 
land, where the bamboo splits in pieces or else the boxes fall 
apart. 

Y. Namikawa has long held undisputed supremacy as a 
maker of fine cloisonne ; and we saw in his workroom differ- 
ent vases in the various processes from the one in which the 
metal ribbon is cut, shaped, and cemented over the minute 
design traced on the vase, to the final polishing up. Nami- 
kawa's production is a small one, but he boasts that each 
article is turned out perfect in every detail, and without a 
flaw. He used to boast that his work required no trade- 
mark or sign to distinguish it ; but other makers have run 
him so close in excellence of work that he has been obliged 
to place a mark on the output of his workrooms. Although 
the cloisonne enamel is on metal, it is as easily chipped as 
porcelain, and it dXto requires careful handling to avoid 
tarnishing the metal cloison. The cloison is made on gold, 
silver, or copper articles with " wire," or rather tape, of one 
of these metals, almost as thin as paper, and about one-six- 
teenth of an inch wide, cut of the required lengths, shaped 
with pincers, and cemented on edge to fit the tiny designs 
of flowers, birds, and other objects sketched on the vase or 
other article treated. When the interstices are filled with 
the various enamel pastes, and these have been burnt in the 
kilns and polished, the finished product turned out to-day by 
the best makers in Japan will compare favourably with that 
of any other country or time. Since 1860, when the imita- 
tion of Chinese models was abandoned, and designs from the 



RELIGION IN JAPAN 165 

best Japanese artists began to be copied in cloisonne, the 
manufacture has steadily increased in excellence, until it is 
now superior to any in the world. For the Chicago Exhibi- 
tion of 1893 chased silver vases decorated with cloisonne and 
covered with a translucent enamel in beautifully-shaded, 
iridescent colours were first made, and for the Paris Exhibi- 
tion of 1900 wireless cloisonne was produced by withdraw- 
ing the metal tapes after the cloisons are filled in with the 
enamels, and allowing the latter to coalesce. The result 
obtained is a shaded, or blended, instead of a well-defined, 
outline to the designs. 

A pleasant day's excursion from Ky5to was made down the 
Katsura-gawa rapids. A three hours' ride with two coolies 
to each jinrikisha, and uphill all the way except the last half- 
hour, brought us to Hozu, where we, our coolies, and our 
three jinrikishas, as well as a number of boatmen, embarked 
on a flat-bottomed boat about forty feet long and thirty 
inches deep. The rapids are not very swift, and there is less 
excitement and less apparent danger than on the "water 
chutes " at Coney Island or Earl's Court. But the wooded 
banks of the river are very pretty, reminding one of Clive- 
den or Quarry Woods, on the Thames, and of some parts of 
the Moselle. It is to be regretted that this natural beauty 
is fast being destroyed by a railway which is being built on 
high embankments on one side of the narrow valley. It took 
us just two hours to float down the thirteen miles to Arashi- 
yama, which was for all the world like the Thames at Hamp- 
den Court on a Bank Holiday. 

From Kyoto we went by train to Nara, passing through 
Uji, before which there is a fine view to the left from the 
train as it crosses the Uji-gawa. This is the district which 
grows the best Japanese teas, and here may be seen tea plan- 
tations under matting supported on light frames. This 
protection of the leaf from the direct action of the sun is said 
by the Japanese to render the leaf much more delicate in 
flavour ; and recent experiments made by the United States 
Department of Agriculture have established even more than 
was claimed. It was found that "the shaded plants give 



166 EELIGION IN JAPAN 

nearly double tlie yield of the unshaded, and a much finer 
leaf," and that " the leaf thus produced was tender, very lus- 
trous, and made a very delicate tea." 

The States are particularly interested in Japanese tea, as 
it takes practically the whole of the tea exported. This is 
entirely green tea, which is the only kind consumed in the 
States, made by roasting the leaf over charcoal fires, after a 
few hours' drying in the sun. About one-third is " basket- 
fired " and two-thirds " pan-fired." The plucking begins in 
May, and goes on until the end of August. There are usu- 
ally three pluckings, with a fortnight's interval between each. 
Between Nagoya and Shizuoka, where the tea is grown under 
pear-tree arbours, the first plucking was finished, in 1899, on 
May 26th. The green tea grown in South Carolina, on the 
Japanese system, is said to be " as good as any in the world." 
China is the only country which competes with Japan in the 
American tea trade. 

We also passed many thick bamboo plantations, and near 
Nagaike saw acres of pear-trees in full blossom trained on 
arbours. On our arrival at Nara we went to the Musashino 
Inn, where I began to use my sheets, which are a luxury un- 
known to the Japanese, and pillow ; and to seek the limited 
protection afforded by a prodigal use of flea-powder. 



CHAPTER XVI 

WESTERN JAPAN 

Nara. Horyiiji, The Oldest Temple in Japan. The Tomb of the First 
Mikado. Hasedera. Tonomine. Rats and Cats. Famous Cherry- 
trees. Koya-san, the Japanese Grande Chartreuse. Sake. A 
Temple Dinner. A Crowded Inn. Wakayama. The Noises of the 
Night. Sakai. Osaka. A Funeral. Osaka Castle. Kobe and 
Hyogo. 

Nara is the exclamation point of visitors to Japan. It is 
here that they most frequently get their impression of " the 
interior " ; it is here their travels take the form of a picnic 
with lunch-basket accompaniment. Here many of them see 
tame deer for the first time in their lives, and fail to realise 
what an awkward, ungraceful animal a tame deer is unless 
the hounds are after it and it is bounding across country. 
We had bought a lunch-basket at Yokohama, and there laid 
in a stock of tinned provisions, including tinned butter and 
milk as well as biscuits, and we were quite prepared to be 
independent of the country as far as food was concerned. 

But Nara has interesting sights other than its deer and 
trees, and has a notable history as well. In the eighth cen- 
tury Nara was the capital, and claimed a population of a 
quarter of a million. To-day it contains about thirty thou- 
sand people and the great thoroughfares, after which the 
main streets of Kyoto were named, are lanes in the woods or 
paths between rice-fields. 

From the Musashino Inn the road through the wood to the 
Kasuga no Miya is very pretty, and the surroundings are 
undoubtedly romantic. This temple, famous for the great 
number of brass lanterns it possesses, is said to have been 
rebuilt fifty-five times since it was founded. Here at the 

167 



168 WESTERN JAPAN 

Wakamiya we saw a couple of girls perform the kagura^ 
an ancient religious dance. We afterward saw the dance 
done with more ceremonious details at Ise. After leaving the 
young ladies we proceeded to Todaiji, to see the great copper 
bell cast during the time when Nara was the capital. 

Thence a short stroll through the wood brings you to the 
bronze Daibutsu, also cast in the eighth century. Except for 
its age and size, this gigantic seated figure of Buddha is 
uninteresting, and the more modern head, replacing one de- 
stroyed by fire, is extremely ugly. The building containing 
the Daibutsu is supported by made-up timber pillars 4-5|^ 
feet thick, and our guide managed to crawl through a tube- 
like opening cai'ved out of one of them. In the same 
building is a collection of antiques, including eighth-century 
masks, a sixteenth-century coloured statuette, and some high- 
relief carvings. The courtyard contains a Chinese carved- 
bronze lantern, said to be the finest existing specimen of 
eighth-century metal-work, and the niches of the gate- 
ways hold magificent nio dating from the eleventh century, 
and reputed to be not only the largest but the finest 
examples of ancient wood-carving in Japan. There are also 
two dogs or lions carved in stone, specimens of Chinese art 
of the twelfth century. 

Kobukuji is next visited to see the pine-tree planted by Kobo 
Daishi. Its branches are propped up with poles and timbers, 
as is the case with most of the famous old trees in Japan. 
There is a fine collection of ancient wood-carvings exhibited, 
including splendidly executed seventh-century nid which 
show extraordinary fidelity to nature. 

We went from Nara by jinrikisha to Yakushiji, passing 
through Koriyama. The temple contains splendid antique 
bronzes, heroic in size and black with age. Many date from 
the seventh century, the golden age of Korean art in Japan. 
Another forty minutes' ride brought us to Horyiiji, the oldest 
Buddhist temple buildings in Japan. They were completed 
in the year 607 a.d., fifty-five years after Buddhism was 
introduced into Japan from Korea. The pillars of the 
" Kond5," to the left of the temple entrance, are supported 



WESTERN JAPAN 169 

on concrete blocks made with cement, having all the appear- 
ance of Portland cement, twelve hundred years before the 
latter first began to be made in England. This building and 
the pagoda are the oldest wooden buildings in Japan, and the 
only ones remaining of the original structures. 

H5ryuji possesses several paintings coeval with its foun- 
dation; and bronze, wooden, and terra-cotta images of the 
seventh and succeeding centuries up to the fourteenth cen- 
tury ; and Korean, Chinese, and Indian influences may be 
noted and admired. The paintings are the most ancient in 
Japan ; and are remarkable as works of a period of high 
artistic excellence, as well as for their good state of preserva- 
tion. In the treasury we were shewn a finely painted screen, 
with beautifully drawn flowers, which is believed to be over 
one thousand years old. There is an Indian bronze figure 
of the Healing Buddha, a Korean Jiz5 of the sixth century, 
and some seventh-century terra-cotta groups cleverly mod- 
elled with faces full of lifelike expressions. 

One building dedicated to the Healing Buddha, and con- 
taining thirteen figures by a Korean artist of the eighth 
century, has its interior covered with offerings made by 
grateful convalescents. Hundreds of swords presented by 
male invalids, bronze mirrors from women, iron drills (Jdri) 
with wooden handles from those cured of deafness, and hair 
from the heads of women too poor to offer anything else, 
decorate the walls from floor to rafters, and a great bronze 
bell, a fountain, and other ornaments have been made by 
melting down countless other mirrors. 

A whole day can be very profitably spent at Horyuji by 
any one interested in ancient Japanese art, but we left there 
early enough to go by train to Sakurai, stopping at Unebi 
to visit the tumulus of Jimmu Tenno, the first Mikado of 
Japan, the date of whose accession is fixed by Japanese 
historians on the 11th February in the year 660 B.C. The 
tumulus is surrounded with trees, a moat, and a massive 
granite fence, so that only occasional peeps can be had of 
the actual tumulus, for an iron gate closes the way, and 
from it can be seen little more than a stone screen and a 



170 WESTERN JAPAN 

wooden torii of unusual design. But the monument as a 
whole is very impressive ; everything about it is solid, scru- 
pulously kept up, and secluded to a degree. Close by is the 
tumulus of Jimmu Tenno's successor, and a mile or so away 
is the Kashiwabara Jinja, the newly erected mausoleum, 
taking the form of a restoration of Jimmu Tenno's ancient 
palace. Here are also some buildings brought from the 
palace at Kyoto, in one of which the Emperor celebrates the 
Harvest Festival. 

At Sakurai we were put up in an annex of the Kaikaro 
Inn, from where we made an excursion to Hasedera, one 
of the Thirty-three Holy Places dedicated to Kwannon, the 
Goddess of Mercy. From Sakurai the road runs up through 
a very pretty valley dotted with tiny fields of yellow rape, 
alternating with blue patches of tragacanth (rengeso) and 
clover, in vivid contrast with the surrounding green hills. 

Hasedera is built on a rock on the hillside, and the part 
which projects from the rock is supported by a kind of per- 
manent scaffolding, or on piles. The zigzag steps to the 
temple from the end of the village street were flanked by 
beds of peonies in full bloom, and from the platform at the 
top we had a fine view of the Hase-gawa valley. The great 
gilt image of Kwannon can only be dimly seen by the light 
of a candle drawn up by a piece of cord ; but there is more 
light on the two pictures of Buddhist deities, each covering 
640 square feet, and on the big kakemono, all three supposed 
to be by K5b5 Daishi, in the early years of the ninth century. 
The monastery connected with Hasedera has spacious rooms, 
one of them with a floor surface of 2700 square feet (150 
mats); and there are painted screens (^shoji, fusumas, and 
lyohu), in addition to nine good figures of priests carved in 
wood, to be seen, and a well-kept-up " Mikado's Room." 

We took jinrikishas to the school near Tonomine, and 
walked up through the splendid avenue of cryptomeria 
and the maples to the famous Shint5 temple. A pair of 
fine bronze lanterns and a small thirteen-storeyed pagoda are 
in the grounds, and a drum the size and shape of a flour- 
barrel is one of the " exhibits " in the oratory ; but the real 



WESTERN JAPAN 171 

attractions are the beautiful grounds, the splendid situation 
of the temple, and the views on either side of the mountain 
to be seen from the second gate (^Ni-yio-mori) . 

From Tdnomine, where we lunched on raw fish and other 
luxuries at the Hananaka Inn, to Kami-ichi, on the Yoshino- 
gawa, is about eight miles ; and we found it a delightful 
walk on a fine spring afternoon, in spite of several wash-outs 
and occasional harmless snakes, most of them about three 
feet in length, and not particularly quick in getting out of 
the way. 

The road winds about among the hills, disclosing from 
time to time views over the Yamato mountains, through 
woods and terraced valleys, and past villages to the ferry 
between Kami-ichi and ligai. There is a waterfall about 
thirty feet high on the way. It was a tiresome grind, at the 
end of a long day, to walk up the slippery, narrow road from 
the ferry to Yoshino, and we only arrived at 7.30 at the 
crowded Tatsumi Inn, where a much needed night's rest was 
sadly disturbed by swarms of rats playing about the buildings. 

The rats in Japan thrive under the combined protection 
of Buddhism, which forbids the taking of animal life, and of 
superstition, which regards them with affection as a sign of 
good luck ; and no sailor would be more distressed over the 
departure of the rats from his ship than would some of the 
more superstitious Japanese over their absence from his 
house. Cats are not numerous in Japan, and many of those 
we saw were tailless. It is asserted that most of these are 
born without this appendage, but it is no doubt true that 
kittens have their tails " cut off to prevent them from be- 
coming goblins." 

In the early morning we visited the famous cherry-trees, 
the first grove of which, said to number exactly a thousand 
trees and to be thirteen hundred years old, we had seen the 
previous evening. But they had reached the zenith of their 
beauty earlier in the week, and the ground, covered with 
the fallen blossoms, looked the same colour as the ravines on 
the flanks of far-away Omine, where last winter's snow was 
still lying. 



172 WESTERN JAPAN 

We left Yosliino at 9 a.m. and crossed the Yoshino-gawa 
at Saso an hour later. From Muda the road had been newly- 
repaired with a heavy layer of gravel and round stones from 
the river, and our progress was rather slow ; but a promise 
of extra pay if we caught the 11.15 train at Kudzu resulted 
in a breakneck pace down Ono-toge, and our arrival just in 
the nick of time. The railway had only been open a few 
weeks, and runs through Kitanchi, GojS, Futami, and Suda 
to Hashimoto, where we arrived at one o'clock. 

Crossing the river to Kamura, we halted for lunch, and after- 
ward joined the procession of pilgrims for K5ya-san. A very- 
hot walk of an hour and forty minutes brought us to the tea- 
house on the summit of the first range of hills, from which place 
it is easy going to the "Bridge of Paradise," where we arrived 
about six o'clock. Then comes a stiff, zigzag climb for half an 
hour to a detached temple, and easy v\^alking again for another 
half -hour to the bronze Jizo at the back entrance to Kongd- 
buji, which occupies a magnificent situation on the heavily- 
wooded summit of K5ya-san. There is not much shade up 
to the bridge, but the occasional pear, cherry, and palmetto 
trees were in blossom, and we saw peonies and rhododen- 
drons. Higher up, where the forest covers the hillside, we dis- 
tinguished varieties of oak, fir, and cedars (Jcashi, maJci, and 
cryptomeria)^ as well as the keyaki, kiri, and biwa, the latter 
bearing the loquat fruit. A solitary cherry-tree among the 
cedars on the mountain-side was still in full bloom, and gave 
one the impression of a bride surrounded by frock-coated 
men. After some delay at the Examination Office, where 
we were informed that no other Europeans had been at 
K5ya-san that year, and that only about ten made the pil- 
grimage the year before, we were directed at our request to 
the Shojo-Shin-in Temple, where we arrived, in charge of a 
priest, tired and hungry, about half-past seven o'clock. Ow- 
ing perhaps to the lateness of the hour, we seemed by no 
means to be welcome guests ; and the bonze who opened the 
outer gate and admitted us to the basement raised many 
objections before letting us pass through ; but as there are 
no inns, and most of the other temples were full to overflow- 



WESTERN JAPAN 173 

ing, we were determined not to be denied. The head-priest 
was summoned, and he questioned us as to why we came to 
Koya-san, and who sent us to his temple. We told him that 
the fame of the monastery of Kong5buji and its founder 
Kobo Daishi had reached us in England, and led us to under- 
take the pilgrimage, and that we had read in a learned book 
that the Shojo-Shin-in Temple was celebrated for its hospi- 
tality. But our stolid honze knew not Murray, and said at 
this late hour it would be impossible to prepare fresh hot- 
water for a bath, and further, that no animal food and no 
strong foreign drink could be consumed in the temple. We 
answered that we had heard that a bath in dirty water was 
considered to be healthy, and strengthening, and that we 
were accustomed to shdjin-ryori or Buddhist diet containing 
no animal matter. The honze still hesitated, so Nagura 
informed him that I had visited the Mikado and shaken his 
hand, that I was a great personage in my own country, and 
a traveller who had seen many lands and had many curious 
stories to tell, so finally we were admitted. But I was 
obliged to live up to my reputation, and while I was having 
my bath (in fairly clean water), and making my toilet, the 
priests gathered around to listen to my account of a visit to 
the famous monastery of the Grande Chartreuse founded by 
St. Bruno at the end of the eleventh century, about 270 
years after Kong5buji, and like it situated in the mountains 
and approached by a long road through old forests and 
beautiful scenery. I told them how both monasteries had 
suffered by fire, how both possessed famous libraries, how 
the Carthusians, like the strict Buddhists, eat no meat, and 
how women are to this day excluded from the Grande Char- 
treuse, as they were, until the present reign, from K53''a-san. 
France they had never heard of ; but they had a dim idea 
of England. Nagura explained that the former was a dis- 
tant province of the latter, so with foreheads touching the 
floor and many polite siffling inhalations our worthy hosts 
withdrew. 

We were placed in charge of a couple of boys who showed 
us to a fine twelve-mat room, and then retired to bring us. 



174 WESTERN JAPAN 

first, tea, and then biscuits made of rice (sembei)^ and after- 
ward our dinner. And this turned out to be a most elabo- 
rate meal, if not a very satisfying one. We were served on 
the little ceremonial lacquer tables (zen) about ten inches 
high, one small boy keeping our bowls filled with boiled rice 
(meshi) from the rice-tub (ohachi'), another brought in the 
various courses in covered lacquer bowls, while a third 
replenished our cups with warm sake (hanzake). 

Sake^ the national drink, is brewed from rice with scarcely 
any other ingredient but water. The malt (koji) is made 
from husked but uncleaned rice ; the yeast (moto^ is formed 
from koji and mixed with steamed rice-and- water, and heated 
to induce alcoholic fermentation. More steamed rice-and- 
water mixed with proper proportions of koji and mote are 
fermented and then filtered. The sake is thus obtained, 
and has an alcoholic strength of about eleven per cent. It 
is difficult to preserve in warm weather, and is therefore 
mostly brewed in winter, and the whole brew disposed of 
within a twelve-month. It has a flavour of light sherry or 
marsala, and is sipped warm or cold. 

Each table held four bowls (hira'), one for the rice and 
the other three containing soups (shiru) or stewed vegetables 
of sorts. Three times the tables were changed, and fresh 
dishes presented, until we had had a full dozen different 
messes placed before us, all of which we tasted, even to the 
evil-smelling diakon and konomono (radishes pickled or pre- 
served in salt and bran). There was soup (misoshiru) sea- 
soned with miso (a sauce made of beans, wheat, and salt) ; 
there was "the honourable soup" (o shiru}, and still another 
soup of bean-curds (^suimono') ; there was a dish of vegetables 
called choku, and a mysterious mixture known as how ait ; 
there was buckwheat (soha^ flavoured with soy (shoyu, a 
sauce made of fermented beans and wheat); there was 
pickled seaweed (^sushi), and a red bean sauce with sugar 
(^shiruko'}, both eaten with rice cakes; and there was, at the 
finish, dessert {kuchitori'), consisting of sponge cake (kasutera) 
and a sweet paste made of beans Qi/dkan), which were the onlj^ 
things we tasted twice. 



WESTERN JAPAN 175 

The window of our room was barred ; and below it was 
a handsome bronze lantern, close by a stream of running 
water whose gentle ripple lulled us into a sound sleep, dis- 
turbed hourly by the sound of two sticks struck together by 
the watchmen on their rounds to safeguard the building 
from fire. We learned from the priest who guided us to 
the temple that during the previous month about two thou- 
sand pilgrims arrived daily, and about half this number slept 
every night in the various temples. While women are 
now admitted as pilgrims, none are permitted to reside at 
K5ya-san. 

We were up and out at 6.30, and devoted the morning to 
seeing the sights. We were not shewn the " celebrated por- 
trait of Kobo Daishi" nor the " eight thousand scrolls of the 
Buddhist scriptures written in letters of gold and elaborately 
ornamented with silver designs." But we visited the ceme- 
tery; and saw the Hall of Bones, the great monument to the 
Daimyos of Suruga, the sotoha over the graves of noble- 
men, the shrine of the thousand gilt images, Kob5 Daishi's 
mandara and his tomb. We bought samples of the rosaries 
(iuzu) sold to pilgrims. Some are made of glass beads, 
some of carved peach-stones, and some of polished seeds of 
the bodaiju, the sacred tree of the Buddhists, the bo-tree of 
India. We sprinkled water over the bronze statues of Jis5, 
Fudo, and Dainichi for the repose of our ancestors' souls, and 
then went to see the artistic screens in the abbot's residence. 

The priest who shewed us the massive heyaki beams and 
slabs of the hondo and the golden glories of \t& naijin caused 
continual tittering, in the party of about forty faithful pil- 
grims, by his sing-song descriptions, and a final burst of 
laughter when he said that Heaven was just like the naijin 
(chancel). Then there were the great gilt images of the 
Gods of Wisdom, the Western Pagoda, the revolving li- 
brary, and the two ancient Shinto shrines, to be seen before 
we concluded our visit and took our departure, shortly after 
eleven o'clock, by the front gate down the rather pretty road 
by which K5b5 Daishi first ascended Koya-san. 

It was raining when we started. However, the road was 



176 WESTERN JAPAN 

good to the first tea-house, where we halted for lunch ; but 
our coolies were far in the rear, and we could only get a few 
oranges to eat while we admired the little clump of trees 
near by containing specimens of palmetto, cherry, pine, cedar, 
maple, and red camellias, growing side by side. From the 
tea-house the road winds through a succession of narrow 
valleys bottomed with paddy-fields, and there is a gradual 
descent with occasional hills to climb. The rain had in- 
creased in violence, and the roads were ankle-deep in mud. 
Trees were few and far between, and taking the new road 
from Kudoyama there was nothing to see until within a mile 
or so of Myojimura, where the stream is pretty, and forms sev- 
eral cascades, while trees are more plentiful. We crossed 
two channels of the Kinokawa by ferry to Giso, and con- 
tinued our walk in the pelting rain to the Kanaya at Ko- 
kawa, where we arrived at 6. 15, seven hours (about twenty-two 
miles) from K5ya-san, tired and wet to the skin. Our fel- 
low-pilgrims, who were provided with loose rain-coats (kappa)^ 
peasants' straw rain-coats Qmino'), or with sheets of water-proof 
paper, fared better. Their bodies were well protected, and 
they tucked the ends of their kimono in their girdles and 
trudged on bare-legged. 

We found the inn crowded with three hundred pilgrims, 
about two-thirds men, and it looked at first as if we should 
have to be content to sit up all night in a space of three feet 
square, which was the room allotted to the other pilgrims 
(two to a mat). But Nagura told them we had been the 
honoured guests of the abbot at Koya-san, and represented 
to the innkeeper that I was a great nabob, so the end of 
a room was screened off for me, and a small tub of clean 
hot water placed in the bathroom. This room contained a 
big oval tub, as big as half a tun, full of water at a tempera- 
ture of over 110° F., and fed by a hot- water pipe sufficiently 
large to replace the loss caused by the splashings of the 
bathers. These came in, naked, and bathed together in 
batches of five, each bather remaining about five or six min- 
utes. On coming out of the bath they went naked into the 
rooms, among the women and children, and moved about 



WESTERN JAPAN 177 

until diy enough to put on their clothes. In this manner 
about two hundred men bathed in the same water between 
the hours of five and ten o'clock in the evening. 

Many of the men were scarred with fumon^ or cicatrices, 
caused by the moxa treatment for rheumatism and other 
muscular aches. This treatment consists of cauterizing with 
small cones of mugwort fibre, which are placed on the affected 
part and lighted. 

The women stripped themselves to the waist, and washed 
themselves in a tiny metal basin with a small towel. 

Our coolies did not turn up until nine o'clock ; but Nagura 
found me a couple of clean kimono, and got me some very 
good fish soup (sowari-no-suimono, a sort of bouillabaisse), and 
some baked fish (jjakimono)^ which I washed down with sake. 
The pilgrims were a very noisy lot, and sleep was difficult. 
Three times during the night we were awakened by drunken 
brawls, but quiet reigned at last, and we managed to sleep 
until seven o'clock. After a good breakfast from our lunch- 
baskets "we visited the celebrated Buddhist temple (Kokawa- 
dera), and the giant camphor-trees in its grounds. There 
we saw curious openwork wood-carvings, the impression of 
Buddha's feet in a stone, and the finely executed images of 
the Twenty-eight Followers of Kwannon in the Tiondo. 
We covered the eight miles between Kokawa and Funato in 
jinrikishas in an hour and twenty minutes, or at the rate of 
six miles an hour. The road was good, except for a few 
yards, where it was under water from yesterday's rain, and 
we rattled over the bridge into Funato in time to catch the 
train to Wakayama, and have tiffin there at the Fuji-gen, an 
inn with a newly-built modern wing fitted with electric lights 
and bells. 

The castle of Wakayama is most excellently preserved. Its 
timbers are covered with a network of ropes, over which there 
is heavy plastering painted white. The interior is excep- 
tionally complete, and there are extensive views from its 
top. The principal inhabitants of the castle are land-crabs, 
about two inches in diameter, five-inch centipedes, and harm- 
less snakes about two feet six inches in length. From the 



178 WESTERN JAPAN 

castle we went to Kimii-dera to enjoy tlie view, so famous in 
Japanese literature, over the salt-flats and water to Waka-no- 
ura, whither we went by boat. This narrow peninsula, about 
a mile long, is covered with pine trees, which, with the rocky 
little hills, form the Japanese ideal landscape. A bright and 
warm day, and a good lunch, combined to influence us in 
favour of Waka-no-ura; but while the view is certainly 
characteristically Japanese, it is far from being "absolutely 
lovely." 

We returned to Wakayama in time to see a religious pro- 
cession headed by a leader, a cymbal-player, two performers 
on small drums and one on a base-drum, all of them in sacer- 
dotal garments, and wearing the curious hats, of Korean 
origin, made of horsehair, or finely split bamboo, lacquered 
in violet or blue. Five banners were borne along with be- 
coming gravity, but nobody seemed greatly interested, as it 
was the regular monthly festival of the temple. We walked 
over the bridge to the railway station, and took the 5.24 train 
for Sakai, but, owing to an accident on the road, our start 
was delayed for an hour and a half. There was a bright 
moon, which gave light enough to enable us to enjoy the 
views of sea and valley during the ride of something under 
fifty miles; but it was long after 9 p.m. when we turned up 
the electric light in our room at the B5kai-ro Inn and pre- 
pared for dinner. 

We found the inn clean and comfortable, but it was by no 
means easy to become accustomed to the nightly noises of a 
Japanese town. In the big cities, the most annoying sound 
is the clatter of the wooden clogs on the pavement outside. 
Each passer-by strikes a different note with his clogs, and 
he can be heard at a considerable distance. The shrill whistle 
and song of the itinerant shampooer (amma)^ who will come 
in and rub you down the wrong way for a fee varying from 
a penny to a shilling, may also awaken you. In the country, 
the frogs and the crickets hold continuous rival concerts. 
But in the small towns where houses are closer together and 
there are no well-constructed hotels, you get not only the clogs, 
the frogs, and the crickets ; but the piercing cries of all the 



WESTERN JAPAN 179 

fretful babies in the neighbourhood will penetrate through 
your wood-and-paper walls, and continually disturb your 
slumbers. You get used to all this noise in time, and sleep 
through the din; but it takes many weeks for some to 
become accustomed to it. 

At Wakayama we found an excellent substitute for 
marmalade, called " sweet-orange," made by a local " canner " 
named Kinkuado. The tins are filled with seedless man- 
darin oranges, preserved whole, and retaining a capital 
flavour. 

Sakai has two temples, each of which boasts of trees planted 
in the sixteenth century. Shonuji has a pine-tree with spines 
growing five in a bunch, while Myokokuji has a number of 
cycas-trees (^sotetsu), around whose roots are countless needles 
and other small iron objects supposed to be beneficial to these 
peculiar trees which resemble both palms and ferns. Here 
may also be seen carvings by Hidaro Jingoro, the celebrated 
left-handed wood-carver of the beginning of the seventeenth 
century. Crossing the mouth of the Yamato-gawa we went 
to see the Temple of Samiyoshi where the wisteria was in 
bloom. We saw the pond containing the tortoises upon whose 
backs water- weeds are said to grow ; but, while we saw both 
weeds and tortoises, the former were in no case growing on 
the latter. Over the pond is a semicircular wooden bridge, 
supported on granite pillars, a favourite subject for coloured 
photographs. Many of the larger stone lanterns in the 
grounds are so tall as to require an addition of a stone 
ladder to be used in lighting them. 

We took an early train to Osaka, the manufacturing centre 
of Japan, and had a view over the city from the octagonal 
tower at Namba. Then we visited a small industrial exhi- 
bition on the way to Tennoji where we saw the stone tortoise 
from whose mouth a stream of water carries to the departed 
Regent, Shotoku Taishi, the written prayers of the faithful 
for the souls of the dead. There is a pathetic little chapel 
where bereaved mothers offer up the toys or articles of cloth- 
ing of the little ones they have lost, and ring a bell while 
they pray for their souls. The kondo is worth seeing, and 



180 WESTERN JAPAN 

also the extended view from the top of the pagoda. This 
pagoda has been built with a special idea of resisting earth- 
quake shocks ; and the centre of gravity is made exception- 
ally low by suspending from the top of the interior a great 
pendulum constructed of baulks of timber, and weighing as 
much as all the rest of the building. The Japanese for pagoda 
(which is a corruption of the Persian name) is to. 

On the way to the Hongwanji temples we went to see the 
peony show at Kichisuke's flower-garden. The Nishi (West- 
ern) Hongwanji at Osaka has a beautiful carved gateway ; 
and the Higashi (Eastern) Hongwanji contains nine fine 
carved ramma^ as the openwork panels, about the screens 
partitioning the rooms, are called. At the latter a great 
festival was in progress. The chief priest had come down 
from Kyoto, and a crowd of several thousand people had 
assembled. To avoid accidents, the steps of the temple had 
been boarded over with an inclined plane ; and swarms were 
pressing in, some to the separate places reserved for men and 
for women who paid for the privilege, and some to mingle 
with the dense crowd of men, women, and children seated on 
the floor. Here there was eating, drinking, and merry-mak- 
ing, a regular picnic and a regular hubbub. Outside in the 
grounds a temporary staging has been erected to accommo- 
date the overflow, and this was also crowded. At the Osaka 
Hotel (Jiyiitei), opposite the War Monument, we met the 
first Europeans since leaving Nara. 

This hotel, run by Japanese on European lines, is not well 
managed ; and, although we were prepared to do full justice 
to the bill of fare which announced fried fish, chicken saute, 
roast snipe, beafsteak, curry, cold viands, etc., we found the 
food was poor and the cooking worse. 

At Osaka we saw the preparations for the funeral procession 
of a boy. The priests were borne by coolies in ceremonial 
chairs to the neighbours' houses, where friends of the bereaved 
family also waited, and there put on their robes and vest- 
ments. One coolie carried a special folding-seat for the 
head-priest. The coffin had not yet been brought from 
the house of mourning, but there was a long procession 



WESTERN JAPAN 181 

formed in the street. Large baskets, containing branches 
in blossom and bouquets of artificial flowers, as well as 
cages of doves, were ready to be drawn in the procession. 
Each lot was mounted on four wheels, and displayed a con- 
spicuous label with the name of the sender in big charac- 
ters. There were also a number of banners encased in red 
covers. 

The following day we visited the Mint where the old yen^ 
then only accepted at ten per cent discount, were being 
received in boxes of two thousand each. These were being 
recoined into subsidiary pieces. In the coining department 
they were testing the thickness of the rolled strips of metal 
by weighing plan diets cut from them. 

We saw the midday gun fired from the top of Osaka 
Castle, and watched with amusement the antics of the officer 
in charge, who gave the order to fire with his hands covering 
his ears. Osaka Castle excels as an example of a fine point 
of view from which nothing of interest can be seen. It is 
true that there are the outlines of mountains in the far dis- 
tance (extending in a southerly direction as far as Koya-san), 
and of rounded hills in the middle distance, but the only dis- 
tinct impression is in the immediate foreground, where the 
brick chimney-shafts rise in clusters above a plain of sheds. 
One wonders how the enormous blocks of granite, some with 
a surface of four hundred square feet, were put in their places 
in the castle walls when they were constructed three centuries 
ago. 

From Osaka we went by train to Kanzaki and, by a branch 
line in thirty-seven minutes, to Ikeda, thence by jinrikishas, 
with two coolies in forty minutes, to the entrance of the 
park belonging to Osaka Fu. From the entrance to the 
waterfall at the top of the charming little valley is a walk of 
about half an hour through groves of cherry, maple, crypto- 
meria, and bamboo, full of beautiful ferns and orchid-like 
flowers, and with only one tea-house to mar the scenery. 
We returned to Ikeda by another way through country lanes 
and villages, stopping at a peony farm to see the flowers which 
were just budding out. On the roadside hiwa and oranges 



182 WESTERN JAPAN 

were ripening, and in one of the fields we saw a primitive 
plough being drawn by a man and a boy, while a woman 
pushed as well as guided it. 

Then on to K5be and Hy5go, which are on either bank 
of the little tree-lined Minato-gawa, where there is the tomb 
of Kusunoki Massashige, the fourteenth-century warrior who 
was defeated, and committed harakiri here rather than fly. 

The bronze Daihutsu of Hy5go is a modern work somewhat 
smaller than the Daihutsu of Kamakura, and not to be com- 
pared with it as a work of art. The smaller bronze Amida, 
by the lotus pond of Shinkdji, is much finer artistically. It 
is just opposite the thirteen-storeyed pagoda built as a monu- 
ment to Kiyomori, the twelfth-century head of the then rul- 
ing house of Taira. We saw the sun setting over the 
neighbourhood from the roof of the two-storeyed tea-house on 
the peninsula of Wada no Misaki, and greatly enjoyed the 
panorama of the town and shipping, as well as the view of the 
hills on one side, and Osaka Bay with the island of Awaji on 
the other. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

Tokushima. A Clever Landlady. A Japanese Inn. Footwear. Archi- 
tecture. Tsunomine. A Temple Festival. A Cheap Entertain- 
ment. The Naruto Channel. Kompira. A Wedding. Onomichi. 
Miyajima. Hiroshima. Dogo. A Public Bath. Japanese Women. 
Matsuyama. Horses. 

Fkom Hy5go we went by a small steamer, in about six 
hours, across Osaka Bay to Tokushima on the Island of Shi- 
koku. The first-class cabin on the steamer measured six by 
ten feet ; but, with the exception of the fleas, we were the 
only occupants. 

The old province of Awa, now the prefecture of Tokushima, 
was famous for the beauty of its women and the looseness of 
their morals. As to the latter point we had no means of judg- 
ing, but as far as beauty goes we found a larger, even if some- 
what limited, number of pretty young women in some other 
parts of Japan. 

We found, however, at Tokushima, an exceedingly pleasant 
inn, the Hiragame-ro, managed by a clever and enterprising 
landlady who made it her particular business to study the 
requirements of Europeans, in order to secure the custom of 
those visiting Tokushima. The previous year ten Europeans 
came to the inn, and the average was about one a month. 
She had provided a table and a couple of chairs mounted on 
boards, to prevent damage to the mats, and a foreign look- 
ing-glass was hung on the wall ; but she was unacquainted 
with the mysteries of European cooking and table service. 
After carefully watching Nagura cook the meal, and taking 
many notes in regard to materials and methods, she came 
and sat opposite to me whilst I ate, in order to lose no 

183 



184 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

opportunity for observation. When I required anything 
from the kitchen I asked for it in English ; she toddled off 
to repeat the mysterious words to Nagura, and brought it 
back to me, delighted to find it was what I wanted. Then 
she wrote down the sound of the foreign word and her ex- 
planation of it in Japanese. During our stay she waited on 
me hand and foot, even assisting at my bath, soaping me 
before I plunged in, and drying me with a towel when I 
came out. In many other inns the maids performed similar 
services, but this was the only instance where the landlady 
came to see for herself. Before leaving we asked her what 
information she had gained, and she told me she had already 
decided upon the following improvements. In the bath- 
room, hooks for hanging the bathers' clothes, a soap-dish, 
and a sponge. For the table, serviettes, forks, a cruet-stand, 
more plates and glasses, as well as tea-cups with handles and 
saucers. She further proposed to provide slippers made for 
stocking feet, a washstand, and some cotton sheets. As she 
was one of the few women we met with in Japan who shewed 
any cleverness, our memory of the landlady of the Hiragame-r5 
will always remain a pleasant one. 

Perhaps it is just as well to describe here the internal 
arrangements of a Japanese inn, more especially as the de- 
scription will apply, with very little amendment, to private 
dwelling-houses as well. In the country and villages the 
building will generally be detached, while in the larger 
towns it will be in a row of houses facing the street, and 
will make up for its narrowness by its depth, while at the 
back will probably be an annex. 

The entrance hall (irikuchi) is simply the ground beaten 
and worn smooth. Here your own footwear is left, and you 
have an opportunity, while you arrange for your room, of 
inspecting the various other types, from the rough, straw- 
twine sandals (waraji}, worn by the coolies, and costing 
about two sen (^^cZ.) a pair, to the aristocratic sandals made of 
a palm-leaf -like fibre, with oil-paper soles and a metal heel- 
plate (sehida or setta), costing yen 1.25 (half-a-crown) a pair, 
as well as wooden clogs (^geta) of many designs. There is 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 185 

tlie clog mounted on two high cross-pieces for muddy weather 
(takageta or asMda), and provided with movable, water- 
proof toe-caps to protect the white, digitated socks (tahi)-, 
the Korean geta (komageta)^ with a solid wooden sole taper- 
ing toward the toe, and a piece cut out from the sole under 
the instep to permit the thong to pass through; and the ho- 
kuri, which is a compromise between the last two. Some 
coolies wear tabi with heohima fibre soles, which are tough 
enough to dispense with the protecting geta. This fibre is 
from the interior of the snake-gourd ; and this interior, taken 
out in one piece, is the ordinary loofah (or luffa) which finds 
its place in European bathrooms. At some inns you will 
be given a pair of straw sandals with rope soles (zori)-, but 
as a rule you walk in stocking feet over the bare boards of 
the platform to your room. The passageways are three feet 
wide, no more, no less. 

The floors of the rooms are sunk about three inches, so as 
to bring the top of the mats (tatami) on a level with the pas- 
sages, and as each mat measures three feet by six feet, the 
rooms always measure some multiple of three feet each way. 
On one side of the room is a little alcove (tokonoma or toko)., 
three feet or less in depth, and this is intended to contain the 
hanging scroll (tatsumono) or hanging picture (kakemono)., 
and a shelf for the flower- vase (liana-ike), the incense-burner 
(koro), and the family shrine (butsudan), containing the 
funeral tablets (thai). Otherwise there is no furniture 
nor any ornaments, except, perhaps, a lacquered box for 
writing materials. The ornaments placed on the toko are 
knoAvn collectively as okimono, and similarly the hanging 
scrolls and pictures are kakeji, while pictures and scrolls 
that are not intended to be hung up are called makimono. 
On fete-days the toko in a Buddhist household will contain 
three kakemono., one of a Buddhist deity, and the other two 
being pictures of flowers, birds, or animals, varying accord- 
ing to the season. 

The sides of the rooms facing " out-of-doors " are fur- 
nished with sliding screens (sJioji) divided into small, 
oblong compartments and covered with translucent paper, 



186 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

outside of which may be a balcony (engawa) three feet 
wide, shut in at night with sliding wooden shutters (amado) . 
The indoor sides of the rooms have in place of walls sliding 
screens covered with opaque paper (fusuma), which is fre- 
quently decorated with paintings, or may be simply plain or 
figured wall-paper. As all these screens can be lifted out of 
the grooves in which they run, a Japanese house on a sum- 
mer's day may appear to be simply a roof supported on four 
posts. It is no wonder that the Japanese first construct the 
roof, take it to pieces, and reconstruct it in place when the 
rest of the building is finished. 

Practically speaking, there are no architects in Japan, and 
no national architecture. The earliest forms, which are pre- 
served in the Shintd temples of Ise, may be of Korean or of 
Malay origin, and are the simplest development of a primi- 
tive hut. Buddhism introduced the temple architecture of 
India, modified both by Chinese ideas and Japanese mate- 
rials, the most distinguishing detail being the roof with its 
upturned eaves and sagging profile evolved from the top of 
a tent. The modern buildings exhibit the most hideous 
packing-case styles of utilitarian construction in brick and 
mortar. With the exception of these eye-sores, some fire- 
proof warehouses, or godowns (kura), and a few of the 
castles, wood is the only material used in the construction 
of Japanese buildings. 

The houses have seldom more than one storey above the 
ground floor, and it is on the upper floor, at the back of the 
house, removed from the noise of the street, that the inn's 
best room or the "guest-room" (zashiki) of a private house 
is placed. Unfortunately the cess-pit is usually just below, 
and the square hole in the end of the engawa which opens 
into it and serves as a closet (chodzuha^ is too near to be 
pleasant. As soon as you enter the room the maid brings 
you a small cushion (zahutori), about twenty inches long by 
sixteen inches wide, and half an inch thick, made of wadded 
cloth or matting. This is for you to kneel or sit on. The 
small, square "fire-box" (hihachi)^ or brazier, containing a 
few lumps of charcoal, and a tripod supporting a tea-kettle 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 187 

are brought in, and the place becomes your drawing-room. 
If you arrive any time after 4 p.m., you will be offered 
"the honourable hot bath" (o yu)^ which is at the back of 
the house, sometimes in a room, sometimes under a shed, and 
in some remote villages under the open siiy. After your bath 
you will be handed, at any inn with pretensions to the first 
rank, a cotton kimono {yukata) or bath-gown, with the name 
of the inn printed on the back in large characters. This 
may or may not have been used by some one before you, and 
in it you may on a warm night take your constitutional before 
dinner. Your drawing-room becomes your dining-room by 
the addition of one or two little stands or " tables," about six 
inches high, placed on the floor. If you want the maid, you 
clap your hands or shout " nesan,^^ which literally means 
"elder sister," and is the form of addressing any girl, ser- 
vant or lady, whose name is unknown. In some parts of 
China women are in a similar way addressed as sao-tsu., mean- 
ing "elder sister-in-law." Nesan answers from a distance 
" hei " or " Aa^," either of which mean " yes " ; and the scurry 
of bare feet up the stairs and along the passages is succeeded 
by the sliding back of your fusuma and the entrance of the 
maid, who drops on her knees, and then on all fours, to await 
your commands. As a rule these commands, even if given 
by a Japanese, are carried out not so much to the letter as to 
what the servant thinks is right or is best for you. If you 
order a cold bath, you will be pretty sure to get a hot one ; if 
you order some warm water to wash your hands in, a basin of 
cold water will probably be brought. When bedtime comes, 
a couple, or more if you require them, of thick quilts are 
brought in and spread on the floor, and your dining-room 
has become your bedroom. You may perhaps be given a 
lantern (andon or choehin) and be offered a yogi^ which is a 
quilt (futon) made in the shape of a kimono, and used without 
any other clothing as a night-dress. You will be wise to 
decline the yogi^ as it has covered innumerable men before, 
and probably wears out before it is ever washed. If it is 
during the warm months, your bedroom will be provided with 
a dark-coloured mosquito-net the full size, and suspended to 



188 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

the corners, of the room. Under this you are said to be abso- 
lutely safe from lightning, — and you certainly can escape the 
mosquitoes, — but you are left to the tender mercies of the 
fleas and other vermin which infest the mats and futon. 

The mats, which are made of rice-straw and rushes, faced 
with fine strong matting, and look so fresh and clean 
when first laid down, soon become soiled and dirty ; and as 
they are seldom moved more than once, or at most twice, a 
year, they harbour vermin of all sorts. " If you want to see 
life," lift one of the mats in any Japanese inn. In case it is 
very cold indeed, you may be invited to warm yourself at the 
kotatsu — a hole in the floor filled with smouldering char- 
coal, and covered with a futon, under which you stick your 
feet and hands. 

If you are a sound sleeper, you may not be disturbed by 
the rats overhead, or the snores and grunts of your neigh- 
bours on the other side of the fusuma, or the noises from 
without, but you must live long enough in Japan to forget 
the West, before jou will recognise the Japanese inn as " a 
paradise, and the maids thereof celestial beings." 

Leaving Tokushima early, witii two coolies to each jin- 
rikisha, we took three hours to reach Tomioka. The coast 
road runs south, passing through the fishing village of 
Komatsu-jima, where we halted to inspect the Konaiso Bentei, 
whose carved openwork portico represents the story of Ura- 
shima, the fisher-boy Rip Van Winkle of Japan. Above the 
temple there is a pretty view from a rock much frequented 
by picnic parties. In the temple grounds are specimens of 
the Judas-tree (akaisM hanasuo'), bearing red flowers and 
leguminous seed-pods. We crossed the Naga-gawa by a 
ferry, and rode through a district dotted with farm-houses 
built on platforms surrounded by stone fences and well- 
trimmed hedges to Tomioka, where we left the jinrikisha 
and trudged up the steep hill in the hot sun to the temple 
on the top of Tsunomine. The hill rises from the neck of 
a peninsula, and the views seaward from nearly every side 
amply repay the exertion. The panorama to the south, over 
the islands in the gulfs which communicate with the Kii 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 189 

Channel, is particularly pleasing, and reminds one of the 
view on a much larger scale from the Peak at Hong Kong. 
The temple grounds contain a poorly-executed bronze 
stallion, the gift of three sake and twenty-three other 
merchants, whose advertisements are carved on the granite 
paling enclosing the statue. After tiffin, we rejoined our 
jinrikisha at Nagaichi, and recrossed the Naga-gawa by 
another ferry, at a point where there was a recently -broken 
bridge. 

During the whole morning we had met bands of pilgrims 
on the road ; and returning northward through the hills we 
found ourselves in the stream of holiday-makers on the way 
to the temple festival at Tatsusiji. Every village and ham- 
let furnished a contingent carrying a banner. Most of the 
pilgrims wore thin boards, inscribed with a record of their 
pilgrimages, hung by a string around the neck, and were 
provided with a couple of oblong pieces of wood to use as 
clappers. Some who came from a distance were pushing 
light carts loaded with food and drink. Each band wore 
some distinctive dress. Perhaps only the border of the 
kimono, or a large character on the back of it, or the colour 
of the ohi or the head-cloth, or the colour or signs (^shirushi) 
on the large paper umbrellas showed the identity. In other 
cases the entire dress was the same ; and the favourite cos- 
tume was one consisting of tights (monoliiJci)^ breech-cloth, 
shirt or jacket (Jiappi), and head-covering (Jiachimalci)^ all 
of white cotton cloth, reminding one of some European 
athletic clubs. Some pilgrims wore leggings (Jcyahan)^ and 
some mittens (tekho) covering the back of the hands, while 
a few wore silk trousers (^patchi). 

Occasionally there would be a member of the company 
wearing a child's hat or a false pigtail, and playing the fool ; 
while all along there was the air of a London Bank Holiday, 
or the road to the "Derby." But, as we afterward found 
was the rule in Japan, it was the grown-up men who were > 
playing the fool, while the children looked approvingly, but 
gravely, on. 

One of the largest bands of pilgrims, composed of about 



190 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

thirty young men dressed alike in white, executed an old- 
fashioned dance in the temple grounds. Their leader 
(ondotorV) mounted the temple steps, holding an umbrella 
and a fan in one hand in the stiff position in which kings are 
usually depicted with a sceptre. The other hand was 
placed to the side of the head in the manner of a coster- 
monger calling his wares, and thus posed the leader sang, 
with more melody than I heard elsewhere in Japan, a 
"theatrical story." Sixteen of his followers, "in columns 
of twos," moved in unison through a sort of dance. Posing 
first on the right foot with the right arm upraised and hand 
outstretched, the left knee was slowly drawn up to meet the 
left wrist, and as they touched the position was changed 
over quickly to the left foot, and so continued alternately 
during the song. Eight other followers beat time on the 
wooden clappers, and swayed their bodies with the dancers ; 
while all the twenty-four joined in the chorus of the song. 
They had evidently done the thing before, as they worked 
together with great precision, and carried it through in the 
most serious manner. The song was listened to with much 
approval, and there was loud and continued applause at the 
end. It was the story of the popular wrestler who badly 
needed a certain sum of money, and was much worried and 
troubled for want of it. His affectionate wife raises the 
money to relieve his anxieties by selling herself to a rich 
man ; and the wrestler, relieved of his worries, defeats all 
his opponents in the tournament. Hurra for the doughty 
wrestler ! Hurra for the clever wife ! Hurra for the gen- 
erous lover ! Hurra ! Hurra ! Hurra ! But rather a curi- 
ous moral to point from the temple steps. 

Returning to Tokushima, we visited the landscape garden: 
in the castle grounds, and climbed Seimiyama to Imbe Jinja, 
for the sake of the view in which the island of Nushima is a 
conspicuous feature. The temple itself has a porch carved 
with the representation of a horseman, curiously like St. 
George, fighting a dragon. 

After dinner we took a stroll in the haruwa quarter of the 
town, corresponding to the yoshiwara in Tokyo, and visited 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 191 

one of the houses. As we entered, the porter at the door 
lit a bundle of ten small incense-sticks (sew/co), for which we 
were charged 3.2 sen. After these were burnt, single sticks, 
lasting about a minute each, were lighted one after another, 
until the maximum of 40 was reached, and the charge of 
12.8 sen scored against us. This sum, equal to about three- 
pence English money, would have made us free of the house 
until the following morning if we had wished to remain ; 
but we only spent an hour in conversation with the rather 
pretty girl of nineteen who came, fresh from a bath, pre- 
pared to entertain us ; and we ran up a bill for the said bath, 
for tea and cakes, and for sake and cigarettes amounting to 
another 20 sen. A total of 32.8 sen, to which we added 
princely tips to the amount of 17.2 sen, making a round 
50 sen in all, or about one shilling for the evening's amuse- 
ment. 

Next morning we left Tokushima early, with two coolies 
to each jinrikisha, and took the road across the delta of the 
Yoshino-gawa northeast to Muya, a fishing village at the 
mouth of a narrow passage between Shikoku and some small 
islands in the Naruto Channel. We had to wait an hour for 
the tide, and our boatmen ; two young men, and one old one 
with his grey hair shaved in front and twisted up in back 
in the old style " flat-iron handle " or " gun-hammer " cue — 
a stiff four-inch pigtail starting from the crown and pointing 
horizontally toward the forehead. Our boat was an open 
one, of 350 cubic feet ship measurement, or 35 kohu {sanjugo- 
koku), with the usual single mast, to the top of which the 
yard, on which the sail is extended, is hoisted. The sail 
itself consists of six straight lengths of canvas with leech- 
lines at the sides, to draw the lengths together, and one at 
the bottom, to fasten to the side of the boat. But there was 
no wind, so our boatmen sculled out, heading for the big fort 
on Awaji Island, until we reached the broken water, and 
then hugging the shore, and skilfully steering around 
sunken rocks, brought us to the point of land at the entrance 
of the Naruto Channel. The point terminates in a narrow 
rocky strip, and between this and the island of Awaji, about 



192 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

a mile and a quarter away, the current dashes with a vio- 
lence only to be compared with a great river in flood or to 
the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls. We had tiffin 
on a small rock whose base was washed by the wild waves ; 
and before us, across the waters, was Awaji looking very 
barren and desolate. In the other direction Shikoku seemed 
only a trifle less bare, and without any sign of the "mag- 
nificent forests " with which its mountains are said to be 
crowned. We got back to Muya at a quarter to four, expect- 
ing to leave at once for Hiketa ; but it was an hour later 
before our coolies were ready to start. The road was in 
excellent condition, and, with two coolies apiece, we reached 
the summit of Osaka, the hill dividing the provinces of Awa 
and Sanuki, at eight o'clock, and the Iseya at Hiketa at 
9 P.M., having done about eighteen miles by jinrikisha in four 
hours and a quarter. Here we had a fine big room ; but 
the inn was not very clean, and the numerous rats greatly 
disturbed us. 

From Hiketa we went via Nagao to Takamatsu. This 
part of Sanuki is a plain prettily dotted with hills, whose 
tops appear to be cut off perfectly level, and to one of these 
hills, called Yashimayama, we made a detour. It is on a 
small scale very much like some of the flat-topped mountains 
of southern Arizona. From Takamatsu we proceeded to 
Kompira by train, to visit the famous temple founded by 
K5bo Daishi for the worship of the Buddhist protector of 
travellers by sea and land. To-day it is in the possession 
of the Shinto priests, who call it Kotohira ; and little remains 
of its ancient glory except the Ema-do, filled with curious 
ex voto offerings, including pictures and models of boats and 
ships, anchors old and new, and most prominent of all a new 
patent life-saving jacket with a full advertisement of the 
manufacturer, a limited company of Tokushima, by whom 
it was presented. This is perhaps redeemed by an excellent 
bronze horse of considerable artistic merit. There is a suc- 
cession of flights of steps up the street and through the 
temple grounds. From the first bronze torii to the entrance 
gate (sammon) we counted 190 steps, and from this gate to 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 193 

the honsha, with its view out over the Inland Sea, 360 
more. The paintings and " other art treasures " formerly 
in the Temple Office are not now shewn to visitors, and the 
best bit of old work remaining is the carving over the en- 
trance of what was in Buddhist times the kondo. 

We went on by train from Kotohira, seven and one-half 
miles, to Tadotsu, stopping halfway at Zentsuji to see the 
temple built where Kobo Daishi is said to have been born. 
They gave us a very good fish-soup at the Hanabishi Inn, 
and a good clean room. For the first time in Japan, we saw 
a horse attached to a plough. If a plough is used at all, 
oxen or men usually pull it. In the last week in April, the 
winter barley, which, like all cereals in Japan, is planted in 
rows "by hand," and reaped with a sickle, was ripening 
rapidly, and some was being cut. The rice in the seed-beds 
was coming up a delicate green, but it is not usually ready 
to be set out until about the 10th of June. 

We had an opportunity of seeing some portions of a 
marriage ceremony. The bride was dressed in white, which, 
by the way, is the mourning colour, and indicates that she is 
now as good as dead to her own family. She wore a peculiar 
blue head-dress, with tassels hanging down from either side, 
and her face and neck were whitened to a point a couple of 
inches behind the ears, where the paint or powder ended 
abruptly in a straight perpendicular line. The bride was 
brought to the bridegroom's house by the " marriage-broker- 
lady " who had made the match. An offering of evergreen 
twigs was made at the family shrine, the bridegroom said a 
few words to his guests, the bride and groom drank sake 
from three cups, the bride drinking first, there was some 
changing of garments, a ceremonial obeisance before the 
family shrine, and the knot had been tied without the aid 
of priest or official. Some notice has to be given to the 
local authorities to make the marriage unquestionably legal, 
but this formality is, we were told, sometimes forgotten by 
the happy pair. By the new Civil Code, marriage is effected 
simply by giving notice to a registrar ; and, by mutual con- 
sent, a divorce can be effected in the same way. 



194 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

A curious custom is said still to exist in parts of Shikoku, 
whicli was in vogue six hundred years ago throughout 
Japan, and is at least twice as ancient in India ; namely, the 
return of the wife to her father's house to be delivered. 

From Tadotsu we crossed the Inland Sea to Hachiman, 
connected, by a road of about three miles over a long dike, 
with Tamashima, a station on the Sanyo Railway in the 
province of Bitchu. Our course lay through a portion of 
the Sea known as Mishima Nada, passing to the west of the 
island of Shiaku. From Tamashima we went by train to 
Fukuyama, the capital of the province of Bingo, to see the 
castle, and then on to Onomichi on the western shore of a 
narrow strait, between the mainland and the island of 
Mukaijima in a gulf of the Bingo Nada. Bingo province 
does a large business in shipping the peculiar rushes from 
which the upper surface of the mats used in Japanese houses 
is usually made. The Hamakichi Inn afforded us good 
accommodation, and we enjoyed a fine view in the light of 
the setting sun from the Senkoji temple, at the top of a 
rocky hill. 

It was another beautiful day, and Onomichi was en fete 
when we left it by steamer for Miyajima. We kept close to 
the mainland, passing to the north of the islands of Inno, 
Omi, and Osaki, and a number of smaller ones, to the very 
narrow and picturesque Ondo Strait, with its monument to 
Kiyomori. Not far from this passage could be seen the 
naval station of Kure. The little valleys opening on to the 
sea disclosed in some cases fields of growing barley, but 
generally only fisherman's huts were to be seen. We left 
the steamer at Ono, and crossed to Miyajima and back in a 
sampan. 

Miyajima, a well- wooded island in a gulf of the Inland 
Sea, is one of the three most celebrated views Qsan-kei') in 
Japan. Its rocky hills reach a height of fifteen hundred 
feet, and its groves of maples, yews (hayd)^ and other ever- 
greens make it conspicuously pretty, as the shores of and 
islands in the Inland Sea are usually arid and barren-looking, 
and possess few trees. Miyajima is a sacred shrine of Shinto- 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 195 

ism, and the weather-beaten old temple is picturesquely built 
partly on the seashore and partly on piles which are almost 
submerged at high tide. At low tide you can walk out on 
the sands to the old wooden torii which stands out in the 
channel some hundred yards from the sea front of the tem- 
ple. A large stone torii which was unfinished also stood on 
the beach. Many fine timbers and planks have been used in 
the construction of the old kwairo, which is hung with a 
curious collection of ex-votos. 

The interior of another building, next to the pagoda, is 
covered with wooden rice-spoons, most of them being the 
offerings of soldiers on the eve of leaving for the war with 
China in 1894. There are a great number of stone lanterns 
around the temple, and bordering the walks in the woods ; 
and at night an expenditure of ten yen (about a pound 
sterling) will enable you to have four hundred of them 
lighted, and you will then see Miyajima at its best. From 
Ono we travelled by train to Hiroshima on the Ota-gawa. 

Hiroshima is the capital of Aki province, and was tempo- 
rarily the capital of Japan during the war with China, and 
it was from there that the Japanese Army embarked on its 
career of conquest. The azaleas were in full bloom when 
we visited the very pretty Asano gardens ; and from Futa- 
ba-yama, the hill behind the public park, we had a view over 
the city and country. We again crossed the Inland Sea to 
the island of Shikoku, going from Ujina, the harbour of 
Hiroshima, to Mitsugahama, in the province of lyo. During 
the voyage of five and one-half hours we passed a great 
number of rocks and islands, small and large ; but none of 
them as pleasing to the eye as the rather pretty pine-clad 
island at the port from which we had sailed. 

From Mitsu we went by train, changing at Komachi, to 
Dogo, which Murray says is " the best remaining example 
of a fashionable Japanese bathing resort altogether untouched 
by European influence." Up to the first of May no other 
European had put up at the Funa Inn during the year we 
visited D5go ; and during the whole of the previous year 
they only had two European guests. 



196 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

The bathhouse is just opposite this inn, and is a three- 
storeyed building, surmounted by a small tower crowned with 
the figure of a stork with outstretched wings. The upper 
storeys contain large rooms in which the more luxurious 
bathers can undress and dress, and the ground-floor contains 
a dozen different rooms for bathing. There is first to fifth 
class for men, and the same for women, as well as a couple 
of private bathrooms. The tariff for the various classes is 
ten, eight, six, four, and three sen, which, for the first class, 
at any rate, includes the services of a couple of very young 
girls who help you undress and take care of your clothes. 
You bring your own towel and soap ; and if you are a native, 
your towel will probably measure twelve by twenty-four 
inches, and in place of soap you will bring a small bag of 
rice bran (nuka-fukuro') . After stripping in the upper 
rooms you descend to the bathroom and find yourself with 
a score of other men. One half of the room is a tank, about 
three feet deep, full of water at a temperature of about 
100° F., and smelling strongly of sulphur. The surface of 
the water rises almost to the level of the floor of the other 
half of the room, which slopes slightly away from the bath 
so as to drain into a gutter at the other side. Following 
the example of those around you, you procure a small 
basin, fill it from the bath, pour its contents over your body, 
soap yourself or use the bran-bag, pour another basin of 
water over yourself, and thus cleansed, get into the tank, 
sink on your haunches until the water reaches your chin, 
and so remain for twenty minutes or so. If you want greater 
heat, you must elbow your way up to the inflow, where the 
water is nearer 115° F. After stewing as long as you wish, 
you dab yourself over with the miniature towel and roam 
about the upper rooms until you are dry enough to put on 
your clothes. 

Having enjoyed a first-class bath, I thought I would in- 
vestigate the other classes, so I pushed aside the curtain in 
front of another doorway, and found myself in one of the 
bathrooms for women. I was about to retreat when the 
porter beckoned me to remain, and informed me that, 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 197 

while women were not admitted to the men's baths, men 
were quite free to enter those meant for women. Here 
were twenty-five to thirty nude women of various ages, 
washing or drying themselves, all around me, quite uncon- 
cerned, and seeing no impropriety in my being present. One 
of the women, indeed, somewhat timidly approached, and 
a]3peared rather ciuious, as she had seen very few Europeans 
in her life, and those were all much fairer than I am. She 
received the explanation she wished, and accepted my offer 
of a cigarette with many expressions of gratification. I was 
also taken to one of the private bathrooms, where two 
Japanese ladies were in the bath, and they also joined me in 
a cigarette, coming out of the water and sitting on the edge 
of the tank without any seeming consciousness of the fact 
that they were in a state of absolute nudity in the presence 
of the opposite sex. 

Among the brown and black natives of the tropics, where 
the heat makes all clothing superfluous, and the dark skins 
seem to take the place of other coverings, nakedness appears 
to be in the natural order of things, but the Japanese, espe- 
cially the women of the better classes, are so nearly white 
that the lack of that modesty that forbids the exposure of 
the person is, at first, a shock to European prudery. But, 
however difficult it may be to adopt the Japanese point of 
view, which accepts the natural as the proper, one soon be- 
comes accustomed to sights that at first seem strange, such 
as the nude bathers ; the women bare down to the waist in 
warm weather working in the fields, on the roads, and about 
the houses, the naked children, and the coolies wearing only 
a loin-cloth. It is not so easy to become indifferent to cus- 
toms common to both sexes which overstep the limits of 
immodesty, for it is quite true in rural Japan that "an 
answer to the calls of nature is performed upon the roadside 
entirely oblivious of the indecency of the act itself, or conse- 
quent exposure of the person." 

The only thing that we noted on the following day was 
that among all these women at a fashionable resort frequented 
by the better classes of Japanese, not one of them had a 



198 THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 

really good figure, and there was hardly a pretty face, ac- 
cording to either European or Japanese ideal. And these 
ideals are not very dissimilar. Both include, as points of 
beauty, an arched forehead, large black eyes, pencilled eye- 
brows and long lashes, small ears, nose, and mouth, lips full 
and red, an oval in preference to a round face, a clear white 
complexion, neck long and slender, a slim figure, and a long 
waist. 

The Japanese ideal runs toward general narrowness of 
face and figure, and includes oblique eyes and a degree of 
flatness between them that does not correspond to European 
ideas ; but we frequently tested the opinion of Japanese as 
to the best-looking women at a railway station, a theatre, a 
temple festival, or wherever a number might be gathered 
together, and we found ourselves invariably in agreement 
with native taste, and for similar reasons. But even 
from a Japanese point of view, the proportion in Japan 
of women with pretty faces is very small ; and it is very 
seldom that one sees a woman with a good figure and 
carriage. 

In one point the Japanese, both men and women, excel, 
and that is in small, well-shaped hands, and, as a rule, good 
forearms. But the heelless clogs cause them to assume an 
attitude that in most women seems to be an absolute deform- 
ity. They become pigeon-toed and unduly knock-kneed, 
the knees are furthermore never straightened in walking, the 
hips incline back, and the shoulders and neck forward, so 
that when the outer kimono Qiaori) is worn over the big sash 
(ohi) they almost appear to be hunch-backed. Moreover, the 
tight kimono and heavy clogs induce them to drag their feet 
and take short, stumbling steps. And yet there are some who 
agree with Miss Skidmore when she writes that " Pretty as 
she is on a pictured fan, the living Japanese woman is far 
more satisfying to the testhetic soul." 

Matsuyama, whither we went from D5go, has a famous 
castle, in order to enter which one must first get a permit 
from the local authorities, and then pass in succession four 
gates, before mounting the three storeys to the top, from 



THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU AND THE INLAND SEA 199 

where there is a splendid view over the northwestern corner 
of Shikoku, and across the Inland Sea to the Main Island. 
On the plain, extending on all sides from the granite walls 
of the castle, a couple of squadrons of cavalry were going 
through their exercises. A Japanese on horseback always 
looks like a sailor in a similar position ; smart, perhaps, but 
ill at ease. 

The native horses are of Mongolian origin ; small, wiry, 
and ungainly, and all efforts to improve the breed have been 
disappointing, as imported horses are unable to stand the 
climate, which brings on fatal attacks of rheumatism. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

EAST KYUSHU 

The Japanese Army. The Hot Baths of Beppu. A Basha. Horses. 

Oita. Nobeoka. The Niinobiki Cascades. The Coast Road. 
Miyazaki. Jujutsu, the Art of Self-defence. 

Retuening to Mitsu, we took a small coasting steamer 
across that part of the Inland Sea called the lyo Nada to 
Beppu, in the province of Bungo, on the island of Kyushii, 
the most southern and western of the four greater islands 
of Japan proper (excluding Formosa). The passage takes 
nearly eight hours ; and it would be almost as unpleasant 
for bad sailors as one of equal duration in the English 
Channel. But there are fine views to be had, eastward, of 
the mountain ranges of Shikoku, from the foot-hills to the 
summit of Ishizuchi-yama, which rises to the height of over 
forty-six hundred feet ; and, northward, of the island- 
fringed coast of the province of Suwo on the Main Island ; 
while to the south lies the Bungo Channel, connecting the 
Inland Sea with the Pacific Ocean. To the southwest the 
skipper asserted that the peaks of Asosan, the great volcano 
whose crater measures many miles in diameter, could be seen ; 
but I failed to make them out. We had to put up with the 
only vacant room at the Hinago Inn, as Beppu was crowded 
for some celebration at the military school close by, and, in 
addition to a lot of holiday-makers, six hundred soldiers were 
quartered in the town. This gave us an opportunity of see- 
ing something of the Japanese " Tommies " ; and we were 
told they were fair samples of the soldiers who had distin- 
guished themselves in the advance to Port Arthur during 
the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5. 

200 



EAST KYUSHU 201 

A few months later these same soldiers, who when on the 
march carry their boots and wear straw sandals, gained the 
encomiums of all who participated in the advance of the allied 
forces for the relief of Peking. In valour, in endurance, in 
esprit de corps, in discipline, and in efficiency as well as in 
organisation, the Japanese contingent was admitted to be 
second to none. Even the badly-mounted cavalry are said 
to have, in one instance, made a ' magnificent charge." 

In round numbers the Japanese army on a peace footing 
consists, in 1902, of thirteen divisions, including the Imperial 
Guard, of 10,000 men each ; a general and departmental staff 
of 10,000 ; the garrison of about 10,000 in Formosa ; and 
another 10,000 engaged on police duty and as students, etc. 
In all, 160,000 men on the active list. There are about 
180,000 men in the reserve, making a standing army of 
310,000 men. The second reserve, composed of the landweJir 
and first Depot, numbers 180,000 more, making an army of 
520,000 men on a war footing. There are, furthermore, over 
80,000 men in the second Depot, which brings the total up to 
600,000 men who have had some training as soldiers. 

The effective peace footing of each division appears to be 
two brigades or four regiments of infantry, totalling 8000 
men ; 400 cavalry in two squadrons ; a battalion of engineers 
and one of train, together about 700 men ; and a regiment of 
artillery composed of 900 men and 36 guns, divided into 
three battalions each, with two batteries of 6 guns, 100 horses, 
and 150 men. 

The army is recruited by universal conscription ; every 
male Japanese, not physically unfit, being liable to serve, 
when- he reaches the age of twenty, for three years in the 
active army, four years in the reserve, five years in the 
second reserve, and eight years in the landsturm or territorial 
forces. All men between the ages of seventeen and forty 
may be called upon in an emergency to join the colours. 
But the soldier's training begins at an early age ; for the boys 
in the government schools are taught marching and simple 
evolutions. 

The critics of the Sino-Japanese war have pointed out that 



202 EAST KYUSHU 

the incapacity, corruption, and cowardice of the Chinese gen- 
erals gave the Japanese an easy victory, in spite of their many 
mistakes in strategy and tactics ; the most notable of the 
former being the error in the plan of campaign on land after 
the defeat of the Chinese fleet. And it vi^as argued that the 
success against the Chinese forces was no criterion of the 
result of what would follow in a conflict with trained Euro- 
pean troops. But the war in South Africa has shown that 
even British officers can make fatal mistakes ; and it has 
demonstrated how difficult it would be to invade a country 
like Japan. 

The hot baths of Beppu are, or rather were at the time of 
our visit, more largely patronised than those of Dogo ; but 
while the latter place is a pleasure resort, the former is almost 
entirely filled with invalids who take the various baths for 
rheumatism and cutaneous diseases, as well as for a variety 
of internal complaints. It is therefore not so pleasant as 
Dogo, and we did not avail ourselves of the privileges of the 
public baths ; but enjoyed the luxury of a private bath in the 
natural hot water. 

The whole of Beppu is situated over volcanic solfataras ; 
and in front of each house small circular holes are dug and 
banked up with tiny craters of mud, to hold the pots and 
kettles which are heated to the boiling point by the hot air 
and steam coming up from the ground. The two large 
bathhouses at Hamawake on the bank of the Asami-gawa 
were both crowded, and contained about two hundred people 
each. The hot-water treatment is here combined with sea- 
water baths. In the Higashi-no-yu there is a long, shallow 
trough, about five feet wide, containing a deep layer of fine 
rounded gravel and sand covered with about six inches of 
hot water. This form of bath is called sJiibuyu^ and in taking 
it the entirely nude bathers lie by the hour on their backs, 
packed literally as close as sardines in a box. They stretch 
themselves across the trough, laying themselves shoulder to 
shoulder as long as there is room, and when the length of the 
bath is filled in this way place is found for almost as many 
more by starting a line facing the other way with feet in the 



EAST KYUSHU 203 

armpits of the first line of bathers. When quite filled in 
this way, the newcomers still loiter along the sides, trying to 
find somewhere to squeeze in, or waiting until a place is 
vacated. The heated sand and gravel at the bottom of the 
bath is scooped up and placed, as a plaster or poultice, upon 
any part of the body where pain is experienced. There were 
rather more women than men in this bath, where both sexes 
bathe together, as is the custom in the public baths in Beppu, 
and there was a constant chatter going on. In the small, 
first-class bathroom to which I was shewn, the only other 
occupants were two women, who put towels around their 
waists when I entered, and smiled in a self-conscious way. 
This display of modesty was so unusual that I made inquiries 
about them, and was amused to find that they were pro- 
fessionals of easy virtue. 

Three miles from Beppu is Kannawa-mura, more generally 
known as Asahi-mura, or Sunrise Village, so-called because 
it faces the east. Here is a regular " Roman bath " sur- 
rounded with a stone wall and roofed over. About thirty 
people were waiting their turn, ticket in hand, in an open 
shed where, as soon as their number is called, they strip and, 
tying a towel around their loins, enter through the little 
mat-covered aperture which admits them to a chamber with 
a floor surface of about fifty square feet. Under the floor 
runs a stream of boiling water which fills the chamber with 
steam ; and the bather squats here for ten minutes to an hour 
before coming out. From the hot chamber the bather walks 
over to a little pool close by, and stands for a few minutes 
under the cold water shower pouring into it. The charge 
for this luxury is ten sen. 

We were informed that the solfatara over which this steam 
bath is placed is called Ishi Jigoku. Murray gives this name 
to one of the geysers, which are beyond the village. Part of 
the Bozu Jigoku, which is the most noisy one of these, and 
has a number of small vents, consists of a cauldron of grey 
mud; while the largest solfatara, and the only one that can 
properly be called a geyser, Umi Jigoku, emits boiling 
water of a vivid green colour. This one is the furthest 



204 EAST KYUSHU 

away; and tlie deep, boiling end of it is called Koya 
Jigoku. 

There are many other public baths at Sunrise Village, one 
of the most popular being the Netsunon, where the men and 
women seemed to bathe as an amusement and a prophylactic ; 
but I saw even less in the way of physical beauty among the 
women here than at D5go, and reluctantly came to the con- 
clusion, afterward amply verified in other parts of the coun- 
try, that the nearest approach in Japan to a good type is to 
be found among the men, sailors and artisans for choice. 
The women here were thicker-limbed and more roundly 
developed than those of the higher class I had seen at Dogo. 
But narrow hips were the rule at both places ; and among 
the better class narrow shoulders also prevailed. 

After enjoying the splendid view from the summit of 
Takazaki, we started for Kandan in a one-horse vehicle 
peculiar to some parts of Japan, called a hasJia. This has a 
body mounted on four wheels, with an apology for springs, 
and has longitudinal seats intended for three persons on each 
side. It did very well for two of us with our luggage, and 
on bad roads a hasha is more comfortable and less jolting 
than a jinrikisha. The interior is less than three feet wide, 
each seat being nine inches wide, and the space between them 
about sixteen inches. The hasha is covered with a frame- 
work and oilskin curtains ; and has a transverse seat in front 
for the driver and his assistant, who between them more fre- 
quently lead than drive the horse. 

There is a station at each town, in these parts, where yon 
can hire them ; and the charges are 6 sen per ri for each 
passenger on the government roads, during the day, when 
fine. If raining, or at night, or on local roads, 10 sen per ri. 
Or you can hire the whole hasha for 36 sen (ninepence) per 
ri (2.44 miles). We rode in one of them 61 miles in little 
over 12 hours ; and at another time 56 miles in less than 12 
hours, with only four changes of horses. 

We never saw a complete leather harness. Bits of rope, 
pieces of cloth, and twisted wisps of straw take the place of 
straps. The police look very sharply after the hasha, and see 



EAST KYUSHU 205 

that no more than six passengers are carried. One hasha 
containing seven was stopped on this road the day we 
travelled over it, and one of the passengers was obliged 
to get out. The policeman addressed the driver with a 
polite "please lend me your cap," from which he took the 
driver's name, in order to report him for infringing the 
regulations. 

The horses in Kyushii are nearly all stallions ; small, ner- 
vous, unkempt animals, who jib whenever they meet, and are 
kickers all and biters as well. When we were about to meet 
another one, the driver's assistant (betto} jumped down and 
rushed to our horse's head until we effected a passing. When 
used as pack-horses, they are prevented from savaging by 
pieces of bamboo, under the mouth and over the nose, fastened 
tightly together. To this sort of muzzle the leading-rope is 
attached. Horses are seldom ridden, but if the exceptional 
rider happens to be a woman, she rides astride, man-fashion. 
A common colour for Kyushu horses is a dirty white. They 
are shod with iron shoes, whereas in many other parts both 
horses and draft-oxen wear a straw shoe or pad pulled over 
the whole hoof and tied on. It is probable that the Japanese 
habit of putting a horse in a stall tail in, is due to their fear 
of being kicked by the animal. 

The road between Beppu and Kandan runs along the top 
of low cliffs bordering the sea; and on the land side rise 
well- wooded hills with a mountain range in the background. 
It is a very pretty drive, and we continued on, passing the 
military school at Horysan, the garden of Oita, to Oita itself. 
Oita contains many big silk and other shops, as well as the 
memory of Mendez Pinto, the Portuguese navigator, who discov- 
ered one of the Japanese islands in 1542, and landed here in 
the following year. We returned to Kandan to take a coast- 
ing steamer south, as the road in that direction from Oita 
goes inland, and the journey is only interesting in coming the 
other way, when part of it can be made in boats down the 
rapids of the Ona-gawa, a river which reaches the sea, east of 
Oita, in Beppu Bay. 

We weighed anchor and left Kandan at midnight, and four 



206 EAST KYUSHU 

hours later put in to Usuki. About eight in the morning we 
entered the beautiful island-studded Bay of Saeki (or Saegi). 
Our course out of the bay was to the south of the largest of 
its many islands, in whose cliffs there is a fine natural arch. 
Rounding the southern promontory, which is the most east- 
ern point of the island of Kyiishu, we sighted three small 
cascades falling over the cliffs. Rising above the cliffs, which 
become bolder, are a range of well-cultivated hills, and behind 
them a ridge of mountains. A single file of tall trees marks 
the summits of both hills and mountains. 

The sea was smooth enough, but there was a strong swell 
on, and the little steamer rolled heavily, so we were glad 
when at 1 p.m. we landed at Todoro, the port for Nobeoka, 
which lies nearly six miles away on the banks of the Gokase- 
gawa. The Kumeya was full, and we were obliged to put 
up at another inn, the Kijis-kan, where we left our luggage 
and started off at once by basha on the way to Nunobiki-taki. 
After an hour's ride (something over seven miles), we got out 
at a stone torii, and walked from there to the top of the falls, 
two hours' hard going. 

The stone torii, which marks the beginning of the path to 
Nunobiki, is on the north bank of the river, and near the north 
side of the road. The pathway is broad and well-kept, and 
leads through a closely cultivated valley where already, in 
the first week in May, the rape had been cut, the mulberry 
leaves were being gathered, the tea being plucked, and the 
barley being reaped with a long-handled sickle having a tiny 
blade. Leaving to our right a clump of trees by which is a 
small wooden torii, and crossing a wooden bridge covered 
with earth, a point is reached where there is a clear view of 
Muka-baki-yama and Nunobiki-taki, as the mountain and 
falls are respectively called, something over two miles from 
where you stand. You lose sight of the falls after you pass 
under a wooden torii, and continue some distance across an- 
other wood-and-earth bridge. Two more bridges are crossed, 
one of stone built in 1897, and one of planks with a shrine at 
the further end. Then the path broadens and from the shrine 
to the temple runs through woods of cryptomeria, bamboo. 



EAST KYUSHU 207 

and maple. Three or four hundred feet before you arrive 
at the temple, a rough path is seen to the right, and this leads 
up through the forest to the kilns and hut of some charcoal- 
burners at the entrance of the gorge. A steep, but not diffi- 
cult, mountain trail continues to the top of the falls. 

Murray says that Nunobiki-taki is " one of the finest water- 
falls in Japan, whose height is estimated at 240 feet, its breadth 
at 30 feet." It turns out to be a succession of cascades the 
largest of which is not over about 60 feet high ; and, while 
they may spread to the width of 30 feet in floods, when we 
saw them they were not over half that width. The upper 
fall may be seen from a distance of about two miles, but as 
one approaches it is lost in the trees, only to be seen again 
when one is immediately underneath it. The cascades are 
situated in the angle of a deep recess in the precipitous sides 
of the mountains, and the view of the country from the top is 
very fine, while the falls themselves, almost concealed in the 
thick woods which surround them, offer, as one ascends, con- 
tinually changing bits of wild and rugged scenery. In 
returning it took us an hour and a half to reach the basha, 
and another hour to the inn at Nobeoka. 

The very good, level road south from Nobeoka runs through 
Todoro (2 ri, 12 cAo), Kakusa, and Shimachi (5 n, 16 cAo), 
through a well- wooded country near enough to the sea to get 
occasional peeps of the water. From Shimachi the road fol- 
lows the coast more closely, up and down hill, over narrow 
valleys on high stone embankments, around rocky promon- 
tories or tunnelling through them, to Mimitsu (8 ri, 16 cAo), 
on the river and bay of the same name. The river is crossed 
by a ferry to Godeisaki, and the road goes more inland, 
through a well-wooded country with a range of barren-look- 
ing mountains running parallel to the road about two miles 
to the west. There is a line of fine old pine-trees lining the 
road, or close by where the old road ran ten years ago. We 
have a splendid view of the valley before we descend the hill 
to the bridge over the Omaru- (or Daimaru-) gawa, and we 
shortly afterward reach Takanabi (15| ri), where we should 
have got a fresh horse. But there was not one to be had in 



208 EAST KYUSHU 

the place, so the groom tried to make the horse swallow, as a 
stimulant, three eggs, which he broke into a bamboo tube. 
The poor animal got down about one-third, and distributed 
the balance over the groom and his companions. Meanwhile 
we had a look at the row of " officers' houses," hedged in with 
young bamboos, and at the one street, long, and filled with 
shops. Then we start again ; and the road runs at the foot 
of a range of wooded hills with the sea occasionally in sight 
to the left through the trees, while to the right the moun- 
tains have receded. Then we come to a river locally known 
as the Omushi-gawa, two branches of which we cross by 
bridges, and we continue on an excellently-kept road to Mi- 
yazaki, about twenty-three n or fifty-six miles from Nobeoka. 

About two or three miles before reaching the Seiwa Kwan, 
where we put up, is Miyazaki-jinja, whence a straight road 
leads, northwest half a mile, to a temple connected with the 
birthplace of Jimmu Tenn5. At the beginning of this road 
there is an old wooden torii similar to the one at Miyajima, 
and as you approach the temple there is a fine stone bridge 
to cross, and then a smaller stone one over a miniature moat. 
Miyazaki itself has wide streets and houses of two storeys 
roofed with tiles set in white cement. The weather had 
favoured us, and the day had been a perfect one ; but it was 
warm at night now that we had entered into the month of 
May, and the mosquitoes were beginning to be troublesome. 

We left Miyazaki on the 5th of May, " The Boys' Festi- 
val," when a gigantic paper carp (hoi) is suspended from 
the top of a tall pole at each house where a boy has been 
born during the preceding year. Our journey continued in 
a hasha, crossing the Oyodo-gawa by a bridge, ascending the 
valley on the right, or south bank, and forty minutes later 
crossing another branch in a boat. Another forty minutes 
brought us to Takaokamichi, where we changed horses and 
followed the left bank of a small river. An hour later we 
arrived at Yamashita, and another hour passed before we 
changed to another basha which in a quarter of an hour 
brought us to the summit of the pass leading from the valley 
of the Oyodo-gawa, " the home of wild pigs," which reminds 



EAST KYUSHU 209 

one very much of the Thiiringer Wald in central Germany. 
From Tokajo there is an ahnost continuous avenue of old 
pine-trees for five miles to Miyakanojo, which consists of one 
long and wide street. 

We had taken nearly eight hours to do the thirty-seven 
miles from IMiyazaki to Miyakanojo, where we saw an exhibi- 
tion of jujutsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, at a " Fenc- 
ing School " where the science is taught. The Japanese 
believe that an expert in this art can " overcome an assailant 
greatlj^ his superior in strength and weight ; " but, while the 
knowledge of it is valuable, and its practice an excellent 
exercise, I am convinced, from what I saw of it in theory 
and practice, that it will not compensate for lack of strength 
or weight, if the man possessing the latter qualities is equally 
quick and uses his powers. Its practice depends on twists 
and throws, and it is assumed that the expert in the art 
always succeeds in getting the first "hold," and that the 
assailant is the slower-moving man of the two. For example, 
the expert lies on his back, presumably asleep, and wakes up 
to find an assassin kneeling across his chest with one hand 
on his throat and the other holding a knife upraised which 
he is about to plunge into him. The expert is supposed 
to escape the blow, and overcome as well as disarm his 
assailant. And so he can if the assailant pauses long enough 
with arm upraised, and permits the expert to obtain such a 
hold as will enable him to twist his adversary's arm. But 
in a case of such proximate peril " my sympathy would be 
with the under dog, but my money would be on the upper 
one." In fact, jujutsu is more theatrical than practical, and 
does not go as far as boxing to equalise inequality of size 
and strength ; although the learning of it, like boxing, 
affords good opportunity for developing the muscles and 
increasing the rapidity and effectiveness of their use. The 
statement that " the force of the enemy is the only means by 
which that enemy is overcome " is remote from the art of 
jujutsu either as taught or practised. 

On the west coast of Kyushii we saw very few jinrikishas, 
the greatest number passed in any day being four. Horses 



210 EAST KYUSHU 

being more plentiful, merchandise is transported by cart or 
pack-borse instead of on coolies' backs. Occasionally one 
sees a bullock drawing a long, narrow cart, mounted on 
solid wooden wheels about six inches wide and two feet in 
diameter, looking for all the world like a ladder balanced 
on a lawn roller. These are steered generally from behind 
by pushing against the side ; and the bullock is guided by 
the cart. And this answers just as well as the pulling of 
saws and planes, instead of pushing ; or the turning of 
screws to the left instead of to the right ; or the use of picks 
with only one head ; or the employment of spigots or faucets 
which are closed when the key is straight, and open when 
it is crosswise. 

After leaving Miyakanojo we passed through a curious 
valley, walled in with precipitous cliffs, along the face of 
which the road is scooped out. There followed a ride of 
nearly twenty miles across a broad table-land, to the north 
of which can be seen the smoking summit of Higashi Kiri- 
shima, a volcano rising over fifty-five hundred feet above 
the sea. Then the road, cut in the side of the mountains 
overlooking the Gulf of Kagoshima, rapidly descends for 
about five miles to Shikine on the shores of the gulf. In 
twelve hours and twenty minutes, from start to finish, we had 
covered over sixty-one miles. We had a six -mat room, in- 
fested with fleas and big spiders, at a dirty inn called Iwa- 
hige, whose proud landlord bore the name of Umasuke. 



CHAPTER XIX 

SATSTJMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

Kagoshima. Old Satsuma and New. Faience. The Road to the North. 
The Rapids of the Kuma-gawa. Yatsushiro-ware. Arita Porcelain. 
Old Swords. The Japanese Brnce. A Silk-factory. Coal. The 
Korean Question. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 

There is a splendid coast road from Shikine around the 
shore of the landlocked Gulf of Kagoshima with the island 
volcano of Sakura-jima, nearly four thousand feet high, block- 
ing the view to the south ; and Kirishima looming up to the 
northeast. Tobacco and blue barley seem to be the favour- 
ite crops. From Kachiki at the most northern point of the 
gulf, the hills, beautifully wooded, come down close to the 
shore, along which the road runs for about ten miles through 
Tanoura to Kagoshima. There we put up at the Okabe 
Inn, which is furnished with electric lights, carpets, tables, 
and chairs. We arrived in time to have tiffin at the Ka- 
kumi-kwan, a restaurant in the European style, where the 
menu consisted of fried tai (very good), fried beefsteak, 
roast chicken, sponge cake, and very bad coffee. 

The dialect spoken in southern Kyiishu was rather puz- 
zling to Nagura, whose fine phrases, learnt in a T5ky5 temple, 
were somewhat at a discount ; but while the people there 
were rougher than any we had yet met in Japan, they seemed 
to be, on the whole, well disposed to Europeans. But the 
Satsuma men were formerly bitterly opposed to European 
influences, and in 1877 headed a rebellion which was only 
put down after many months' hard fighting, and Kagoshima 
was the scene of the final events of the campaign. 

We passed the Loyalist Cemetery on our way from Tan- 
oura, after visiting the pottery of Oniwayaki, where the 

211 



212 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

manufacture of crackled faience is carried on much, in the 
same way as it was by the Korean immigrants three hundred 
years ago. The crackled glaze as now made is of a deeper 
pink, or a more brilliant black, than the ancient ware. 

At the time of our first visit they were executing an order 
from a Japanese nobleman for a flower-vase three feet high 
and nine inches in diameter, modelled in the form of the roots 
and stem of a giant bamboo. In order to be sure of a single 
vase perfectly finished, they had made ten or a dozen vases, 
of which all but one had come uncracked from the first bak- 
ing. The application of the liquid glaze to the biscuit was 
made by dashing small quantities of the one over the other 
in the following manner. The vase was placed in a shallow 
tub filled to the depth of about six inches with the glaze, 
which was ladled out in bowls made from cocoanut shells, 
by three men, who stood around and steadied the vase with 
the left forefinger, while at the word of command they closed 
their eyes and threw the contents of the bowls at the vase. 
This was repeated until the foreman thought a sufficient 
amount had stuck to the biscuit, when the vase was taken 
away for the final processes. Its appearance was not unlike 
the well-known advertisement of a prominent London manu- 
facturer of inks. We asked the foreman if this blotchy glaz- 
ing was more highly prized than would be one more evenly 
applied, and he informed us that the case was quite the con- 
trary, and that it was the difficulty of securing a surface 
evenly glazed that made it necessary to make so many pieces 
in order to produce one of the required finish. He further 
informed us that this method of applying the glaze to 
larger pieces was the one in use from time immemorial, and 
that he knew of no other way. I suggested that a tub be 
built of somewhat greater height and circumference than 
the piece to be glazed, and that the piece be immersed for 
the requisite time which, with the amount of glaze necessary 
to be used for a piece of a given size, would quickly be de- 
termined by experience. This simple expedient had never 
occurred to them, and they not only adopted it at once, but 
showed their gratitude for the suggestion in a very practical 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 213 

manner when I visited the manufactory again the following 
day. 

The giaze-cream or liquor is made of a mixture of impure 
fatty clays, together with rocks rich in magnesia. The finely 
crackled glaze made here in such perfection is also manufac- 
tured in many other potteries in Japan, and more particularly 
in those at Awata near Kyoto, where the faience is made 
which is known as " Modern Satsuma." But before the 
glaze is applied, and the final burning in the kiln takes place, 
there are many other processes. Faience (or /ayence, named 
after the Italian town of Faenza) is one of the many varieties 
of pottery, all of which are made of a mixture of infusible 
earths which remain opaque after being burnt in the kiln. 
The earths are reduced to a pap, mixed in the state of cream, 
dried to the consistency of dough, and left to disintegrate or 
" ferment." Then it is kneaded to a tenacious, plastic state, 
and fashioned on the potter's wheel. The rough pieces are 
dried, and if necessary turned and polished on a lathe, and 
dried again before being sent to the kiln enclosed in earthen- 
ware boxes, or saggars, in which they are baked or "fired." 
Pieces that are not circular are pressed out of the dough in 
moulds, or " cast " hollow by pouring the slip (dough reduced 
with water to the consistency of cream) into plaster of 
Paris, or other porous moulds which absorb the moisture 
and leave the paste as a coating to the mould. " Egg-shell " 
china is made in the latter manner. Pieces requiring to 
be joined are cemented together with slip before the first 
baking. 

Satsuma-ware reached its finest period in the first half of 
the nineteenth century, and pieces over fifty years old are 
difficult to buy, either in Europe or Japan. Undoubtedly 
genuine pieces will fetch higher prices in the latter country 
than anywhere else. Since the first Korean potters were 
brought to Satsuma, after their country had been overrun 
by Hitoyoshi in 1592, this pottery has been the property of 
the noble Shimazu family, and from here, and the Tchin-ju- 
kwan factory at Tsuboya, on the other side of Kagoshima, 
has come the finest Satsuma-ware. Goods of an inferior 



214 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

finish are made at the Shosetsu pottery, which we also went 
over on our way back to Kichiki. 

From the latter place we took the road to the north, and 
for an hour and a quarter our hasha toiled up the hill. Then 
we halted to rest the horse and admire the scenery. To the 
south Sakarajima lifted its smoking cone ; to the west we 
caught glimpses of the road by which we had come around 
the gulf from Kagoshima ; while close at hand, to the east, 
rose a densely wooded hill ; and at our feet a pretty little 
cascade tumbled into the valley below. The road continues 
to ascend a steep, narrow, and well-wooded valley, for an- 
other two hours, to the summit, from where there is a more 
distant view of the Gulf of Kagoshima, as well as an outlook 
over a valley lying to the east. A large crowd, mostly chil- 
dren, collected to see us at Yokogawa, where we stopped for 
a few mouthfuls of biscuit and cheese from our lunch basket ; 
and the inhabitants displayed great interest in our con- 
sumption of tinned butter, which was something entirely 
unknown to the good people of the village. Continuing on 
our way, we saw, to the east, the steam from the hot sulphur- 
springs on Kurino-date ; and after passing through the vil- 
lage of Kurino, we began to ascend the valley of the upper 
Sendai-gawa, which is here a small stream flowing for part 
of the way over a rocky channel between wooded hills. 
Thence through Yoshi-mitsu to Yoshida, about twenty-six 
miles from Kichiki, a distance, uphill nearly all the way, 
which we had travelled in a hasha, over a very good road, 
in six and a half hours. The Kuromatsu Inn at Yoshida had 
two new eight-mat rooms which we secured, but the rest of 
the inn was dirty and evil-smelling, the kitchen being par- 
ticularly bad. 

From Yoshida to the summit of the divide between the 
waters of the Sendai and Kuma rivers the road is fairly 
good, and our hasha took three hours to do the six miles to 
the pass, where the view is disappointing. The north side 
of the mountain is heavily wooded, and the road very bad 
for about a mile ; then the trees become more scattered, and 
the road improves. From the pass it is down-hill all the 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 215 

way througli Okoba to Hitoyoslii, about nineteen miles, 
which required nearly four hours to cover ; but we had 
come the whole twenty-five miles with the same horse. The 
road is uninteresting from a scenic point of view, but the 
district it runs through is far out of the beaten track of 
even Japanese travellers, and the conservative temper of the 
inhabitants of it makes them cling to old customs and 
methods which are old-fashioned to Japanese and curious to 
European travellers. 

The machinery for husking rice with its cog-wheels, lever, 
and hammer, all made of wood, which we saw worked by 
water in Settsu and other provinces, is considered antiquated 
by progressive Japanese ; but in the provinces of Higo and 
Osumi we saw still more primitive wooden machinery for 
the same purpose worked by hand and foot power. The 
policemen were very particular, in southern Kyfishii, about 
passports, although they were to become a thing of the past 
in a few weeks, and we had ours examined five or six times 
a day. The majority of the inns on the road to Hitoyoshi 
were " firewood inns " (hiehinyado)^ where only shelter and 
firewood are provided for the guests, who must bring and 
prepare their own food. 

The descent of the Rapids of the Kuma-gawa by boat from 
Hitoyoshi to Yatsushiro takes about nine hours and a half, 
the distance being over forty miles. As we planned to catch 
the 6.20 P.M. train from the latter place to Kumamoto, it was 
necessary to make an early start, and we engaged our boat, 
with two boatmen, the night before. The charge was four 
yen. " The Rapids " are very tame, the current running 
only about five to six miles an hour ; but for all that, the 
trip is well worth taking, as the scenery is pleasing and, in 
places, fine, particularly at one point, Kiomasu Iwa, where 
bold wooded cliffs come down to the river, and a waterfall 
tumbles over the rocks. About five miles farther down 
there is a cave with an opening about fifty feet high and 
seventy-five feet wide. You can penetrate over rocks and 
under stalactites for about a hundred feet, when you come 
to the edge of a cliff which drops precipitously to a deep pool 



216 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

of water about fifty feet below. Between the mouth, of the 
cave and the river is a smaller cave mostly filled with 
water, which is fed by, and is on the same level as, the 
pool in the larger cave. There are fish in the smaller cave, 
and presumably in the larger one which is called Konose-no- 
Iwa-d5. Near here we saw some small birds with apparently 
only one leg, and our boatmen declared that they have only 
one; but we were unable to substantiate this statement. 
We are, however, able to contradict Sir Rutherford Alcock's 
assertion that the birds of Japan have no song ; for, while it 
is unusual to hear singing birds in any part of the country, 
one does occasionally hear the uguisu, the Japanese " night- 
ingale," and we heard its note frequently on the Kuma-gawa, 
as well as the less musical note of another bird. Later on 
we heard the cuckoo on Bandai-San. We saw a manufactory 
of Portland cement, established about 1891, near Yatsushiro, 
where the river is confined between dikes planted with trees. 
The materials used are limestone-rock from an island locally 
known as Ushima, and clay from the " saltings " near at 
hand, burnt together in kilns with coal from the island of 
Takashima. 

At Yatsushiro we bought some of the peculiar faience 
made by Ueno Yayichero at Takata-yaki, Takata-mura, 
Hira-yama. This faience, generally known as "Yatsushiro- 
ware," is decorated with designs in white, and has a brilliant, 
but thin, pearl-grey glaze very finely crackled. It is very 
striking in appearance, and is more usually made on Japanese 
than on foreign models. 

At Kumamoto we found the Togi-ya full, owing to a 
military festival, so we found rooms at the Waka-ya, which 
we left early in the morning to roam about the broad, tree- 
planted streets of the town and visit the castle grounds and 
the park. A few moments were spent at the Shinto temple, 
Kat5-sha, on our way to the railway station, where a large 
number of students were lined up on the platform to bow to 
and cheer some officers leaving by our train. We had fine 
views of Shimabawa Gulf on the way to Tosu, where we 
changed trains, and of Omura Gulf on the road to Nagasaki, 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 217 

where we put up at the Nagasaki Hotel. A visit to the 
workshops of Yezaki, where we saw tortoise-shell welded 
like iron, manipulated into various articles, and carved iu 
delicate designs, led to some purchases. We spent the 
balance of the day exploring the town and neighbourhood 
of Nagasaki, and then went by train to Arita to visit the 
porcelain manufactory of the Koransha, a company which 
was established in " the seventies " to take over the business 
of Fukagawa and others. 

The Koransha has long since given up the old marks on 
its porcelain, and now uses a blue one in the shape of a small 
spray or flower. Many of the eighteen factories existing in 
this neighbourhood a hundred years ago have been closed, 
among them being the Seiga Kwaisha, which had stopped 
recently. The factories in the vicinity of Arita, formerly 
called Tanaka-mura, owe their origin to the same influences 
as those of Satsuma; namely, Koreans brought over after 
the war at the end of the sixteenth century. But as early 
as 1513 the art of making porcelain was introduced direct 
from China by a Japanese who studied it in the Chinese 
factories. About the middle of the seventeenth century 
these wares began to be exported from Arita. The Dutch 
called them Hizen, after the province in which Arita is situ- 
ated ; and they afterward became known as Imari-ware, 
from the seacoast town eight or nine miles away, from which 
they were exported. During the period between the years 
1650 and 1800, and even later, as long as the Dutch had con- 
trol of the trade, the production shows the influence of 
Dutch taste in the decorations. Pieces of this period are 
known to collectors as " old Japan. " 

The name porcelain seems to have been derived from the 
Italian word porcellana, a white shell which porcelain resem- 
bled in colour, and which was supposed to be used in its 
manufacture. The art was introduced into Italy from China 
toward the end of the sixteenth century, and the earliest 
examples of European porcelain which are known to exist 
are those of the "Medici Porcelain," which was manufac- 
tured during the ten years previous to 1587. This was 



218 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

" soft " or " tender " porcelain, which has a vitreous body, 
rendered opaque and less fusible by a mixture of some cal- 
careous clay. The paste has no tenacity, and was extremely 
difficult to work, and it was covered and penetrated by a 
vitreous glaze. It was not until the beginning of the 
eighteenth century that true porcelain was made at Meissen, 
near Dresden, and it only began to be made in France about 
1770, before which time the French porcelain was all "tender" 
(^pdte tendre). 

All the materials for the manufacture of porcelain are 
found near Arita, where there are deposits of the infusible 
kaolinic clay and the fusible feldspar (^petuntze)^ as well as 
other clays required for the glaze. These are still crushed 
by water-power working directly on a lever. The dough 
is much less plastic than pottery dough, and therefore much 
more difficult to work on a wheel or lathe. The pieces are 
dried and baked in the kilns, each piece requiring a separate 
saggar, and as they are apt to soften or sag in the fire, sup- 
ports are placed in the saggars for large pieces. The biscuit 
is then painted by hand, by stencil, or paper-prints, and is 
dipped in the glaze or the glaze poured over it, and then 
baked again in saggars. The Chinese porcelain is merely 
dried, and not put in the kiln until the glaze is applied ; but 
it is then very porous, and is only dipped into the glaze-pap 
an instant. If there is enamel or " bat "-printing to be 
applied over the glaze, or if there is gilding, there is a third 
baking in a muffle-kiln. The gold is afterward burnished 
by rubbing it with some smooth, hard stone, such as cornelian 
or agate. The kilns, which must be raised to a white heat, 
are fed with small dried wood billets thrown in through a 
slit in the doorway. The eight kilns of the Koransha were 
all busy, being chiefly engaged in making porcelain insu- 
lators for electric light and telegraph wires. There is in the 
vicinity another row of kilns, thirteen in number, and also a 
few scattered single kilns. There is also an art school at 
Arita, where boys of eleven to fifteen years of age are taught 
free-hand drawing from nature and from prints. We saw one 
boy finish a capital iris, flower and leaves, in forty-five minutes. 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 219 

From Arita we went by train to Futsukaichi, and by jin- 
rikislia to the Izumi Inn at Dazaifu. At the Tenjin Temple 
we fed the fishes, ducks, and tortoises with popped beans 
from the three bridges across the pond, whilst the priest in 
charge of the temple museum unwrapped the treasures for our 
inspection. We saw a number of ancient and mediseval 
swords made by the famous makers of the olden days, when 
the processes of manufacture were kept a profound secret, 
and the Japanese smiths turned out blades second to none 
in the world, and when rigid sumptuary laws made it almost 
impossible for a samurai to make any display of wealth 
except in his arms. So there arose a class of sword-smiths 
who passed the art of making the blades down from father 
to son, and whose names and trade-marks on the tang^ — the 
part of the blade inserted in the hilt, — are sought after by 
all Japanese collectors. The names of Miochin, of Kanet- 
sune (beginning sixteenth century), of Muramasa, of Musa- 
chino-taro (end sixteenth century), and of Masamune are 
justly famous. 

The secret of the ancient process of manufacture is now 
well-known, and modern smiths can forge blades just as good, 
and imitate any maker's name on the tang so successfully, 
that the greatest experts in Japan are deceived by the 
counterfeits. It seems that the fine temper of Japanese 
blades is secured by the process of repeatedly heating, beat- 
ing out, and doubling small bars ; welding four such bars 
together and again doubling them over, welding, and forg- 
ing the combined bar until the finished blade will consist of 
hammered metal in countless layers, which require the 
strongest microscope to distinguish. In this manner were 
the ancient two-handed swords with a double edge (tsurugi) 
forged, as were the long and short swords (katana and wahi- 
zashi) carried in the belt. Although a good blade (mi) was 
the first consideration, it was in the ornamentation of the 
hilt (tsuka) and the scabbard Qsaya') that wealth and luxury 
could be displayed. The wooden hilt covered with shark's 
skin has a metal top (kasMra^ held in place by silk cord, 
which interlaces the hilt down to the guard (tsuha'). Be- 



220 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

tween tlie cord and the shark's skin are inserted ornaments 
(menuki) to cover the places where the rivets to hold on the 
shark's skin are placed. The wooden scabbard might be of 
the finest lacquer protected with a metal end (kojiri'), upon 
which the goldsmiths' best work had been expended. The 
silk braid (sageo^ on the handle, as well as the tasuki, used 
when in action to tie back the sleeves and tied in a war-knot 
(tachi-musuhime) on the scabbard afterward, would be the 
product of the best looms. There would be sword-bags 
(tacM-hukuro) of silk, and sword-racks (hatana-kahe) of 
carved wood or lacquer. But it was on the kashira, menuki^ 
tsuba, and fucM (Avhich is an oval ring fitted round the hilt 
next to the tsuba) of the two swords that the metal-worker 
lavished his best work in gold, silver, and bronze. And the 
owner of a pair of good blades might have many complete 
hilts for each, as the parts are all interchangeable ; and a 
bamboo rivet through the hilt and the tang is all that is 
required to hold them together. This rivet can be pushed 
out, and the blade, the ring, the guard, and metal collar 
round the blade detached. All this the custodian shewed 
us, pushing out the bamboo rivets and replacing them, with 
a special little tool ; wiping off the oil-of-cloves with which 
the blades are covered, and polishing them with powder from 
a silk pounce-bag tied to a short stick (uchiko^, before hand- 
ing the swords to us for our inspection. The long swords 
(katana) measure twenty-eight inches from guard to point, 
the back of the blades are three-eighths of an inch thick, and 
the hilt nine inches long. The short swords (wakizashi) are, 
respectively, nineteen inches, a quarter of an inch, and six and 
a half inches. The long sword has a recess in the scabbard 
for the kogai, a sort of skewer, said to have been used to 
leave in the body of a dead enemy, which makes a very good 
paper-knife. The scabbard of the short sword has a similar 
recess to hold the small knife called kozuka. The exhibits 
included himo-gatana and aikucM, — daggers with blades nine 
inches long. There was also a bronze figure of Confucius 
to be seen in the Tenjin museum; and many large bronze 
and stone figures of animals in the grounds. 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 221 

At Kwanzeonji, where there is a gigantic image flanked 
by four statues of the Horse-headed Kwannon, we were shown 
a collection of curious old masks and some specimens of the 
beautiful calligraphy of Ono-no-Toru, whose story points the 
same moral as that of Bruce and the spider. It appears that 
he used his brush very badly, and was despairing of making 
any improvement in his handwriting, when he noticed the 
efforts of a frog trying to climb a willow-branch that was 
hanging into the water. Scores of times it tried, but slipped 
back again as often, until at last its struggles were rewarded 
with success. Ono-no-Toru persevered until his calligraphy 
became famous for its freedom and elegance. 

After a climb up Tempai-zan, for the sake of the view, we 
took train to Hakata, where we rode through the public gar- 
dens to the temple of Hakozaki Hachimangii, and then to 
Matsui's silk-factory. The looms are all worked by hand 
(or foot) power, but Matsui has a great reputation through- 
out Japan for the richest and heaviest silk sashes (phi)^ some 
of which sell as high as thirty yen (X3). What is particularly 
prized is the ohi for men of silk with a different pattern on 
each side, and of such heavy texture that it will quickly 
unfasten even when its wearer is suddenly immersed in 
water. Such an accident was of frequent occurrence to 
travellers in Japan before the days of railways, when streams 
were crossed on men's backs. Matsui also profits by the 
custom according to which the usual offering of a pro- 
spective bridegroom to his betrothed is a silk ohi. Among 
other things, we bought silk handkerchiefs with figures 
of flowers and birds produced by dyeing each thread in 
the proper place before weaving them, a process called e-ori~ 
homi. 

From Hakata we went to Moji, the centre of the coal ex- 
port trade. Here and at Wakamatsu, a short distance along 
the coast to the west, the coal is heaped up ready for ship- 
ment, and we were informed that there were at these two 
places 1,200,000 tons costing about 8s. a ton laid down at 
the port. This tonnage is about 18 per cent of the amount 
mined in 1898, and about two-thirds of the tonnage exported 



222 SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 

in that year, exclusive of coal sold fox ships' use. As the 
export value in 1898 was about 13s. 6d., there seems to have 
been a good profit made by the trade at the shipping ports 
of Moji and Shimonoseki. 

At Moji we left the island of Kyiishu and crossed over to 
Tokuyama in Suwo province, on the Main Island, by steamer 
which traverses the Suwo Nada in five hours and a half. They 
were celebrating at our port of departure, and at Shimono- 
seki on the other side of the Strait, the seventeen-hundredth 
anniversary of the sailing from Kyushu of the expedition 
under the Empress Jingo, which resulted in the conquest of 
the greater part of Korea, some parts of which remained sub- 
ject to Japan until the end of the fourteenth century. Then 
China became paramount for two hundred years, until Korea 
was reconquered by Hideyoshi, only to revert, forty-five 
years later, to China, which claimed it as a vassal state until 
the recent war with Japan. During the early periods of 
Japanese supremacy, Korea was the medium through which 
Chinese arts, letters, and science, and the Buddhist religion, 
became known to the Japanese people. To-day Korea is 
independent, and it is said that the Koreans do not love the 
Japanese. But there were over fifteen thousand Japanese in 
Korea at the end of 1899 ; and it is to this country that the 
stream of Japanese emigrants is directed, and to which manu- 
factured goods are exported in exchange for raw materials 
and foodstuffs. Japanese currency is largely used through- 
out the country. Korea is a favourite field for the enter- 
prise of Japanese merchants, and fhe constant care of 
Japanese diplomatists who look with jealous eyes on Russia's 
advance to its borders, and are prepared to prevent, by force 
of arms if necessary, the exercise of any control by another 
power. By tradition as well as by recent events, through 
sentiment and interests, the Korean question is of even more 
paramount importance to Japan than the Tripoli question to 
Italy, the integrity of Afghanistan to England, the Lost 
Provinces to France, or the Monroe Doctrine to the United 
States. 

The immediate effect of the Anglo-Japanese alliance 



SATSUMA AND WEST KYUSHU 223 

is to secure the integrity of Korea, as well as of China, 
and to relieve the Japanese government and people from 
the deadly fear of Russian aggression. The alliance not 
only strengthens the Japanese government in its relations 
with foreign powers, and promotes its growing influence 
in China ; but, more important still, strengthens the 
Japanese government against its own people, and will 
enable it to successfully resist a wave of popular excite- 
ment that might, if it felt less secure in its position, sweep 
the country into war. There has always been the danger 
that Japan would seek a war with Russia in order to test 
its strength against a European power. Now that Japan 
has an ally to consult, its diplomacy will have a tendency 
toward greater caution ; its armaments may be continued 
with less feverish haste; and the alliance will make for peace 
in the Far East in the same manner and for the same reasons 
as the Franco-Russian Alliance has upheld the cause of peace 
in Europe. The treaty with England has not only been a 
striking achievement of Japanese diplomacy, but a direct 
and proximate benefit to the Japanese government and peo- 
ple. The benefits accruing to England from the alliance 
are not so apparent ; but it is too soon to conclude that the 
practical advantages are all on the side of the Japanese, or 
that the only gain to England will be an increase of prestige 
in the Far East. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE MAIN ISLAND FROM TOKUYAMA TO NAGOYA 

Kobe. Across Country. " The Ladder of Heaven." A Rough Passage. 
Lake Biwa. A Curious Tree. Beggars. Awata. The Temples of 
Ise. The Ise Ondo. The Kagura. Fine Scenery. A Portland 
Cement Factory. 

The Sanyo Railway, in course of construction to Shimo- 
noseki, was finished to Tokuyama and open even as far as 
Mitajiri. We went by this line, in seven hours and a half, 
to Okayama, to see the famous K5raku-En Landscape Garden, 
where the best effect is made by a tiny waterfall surrounded 
by a clump of bamboos. We found at Okayama an addition 
to our commissariat in the shape of tins of preserved Japanese 
beef, the " manufaoturer " of which labels the tins with the 
following : — 

" Recommendation 

" The preserved beef being m 
anuf actured with first class 
beef gurran-tees its purity 
without anxiety of putiefa 
c-tion dispite whatever ch 
ange the air or cli-mate. 
So the manufacturer 
for its being convenient to 
the travellers of both 
land and sea, moreover 
being used as an ordina- 
ry food, recommends it to the 
public as a part of economy." 

The beef is better than the English, and worthy of a higher 
"recommendation." As might be expected, the English 

224 



THE MAIN ISLAND 225 

used in Japan assumes queer forms, and in spelling English 
words the Japanese when in doubt takes his chance with 
an e. For example, at Kobe, whither we went by train from 
Okayama, Ave saw the flag on the quarantine boat with the 
lettering " Health Oeicer," and the sign of a chemist's shop 
reading "Drueeist." 

Our principal object in going to K5be was to replenish our 
stores and lighten our other luggage, for a trip across coun- 
try to Ama-no-Hashidate, one of the Three Famous Views in 
Japan. But we took the opportunity of investigating the 
sights we had missed on previous visits. About a mile from 
the Oriental Hotel, are the Nunobiki Waterfalls, somewhat 
artificial-looking, and spoiled by obtrusive tea-houses. From 
the top of Sanago-yama, close to the falls, a good view can 
be had of the shipping in the harbour ; but Kobe itself, from 
this point of view, offers nothing striking. One's eyes were 
assailed by a species of small QlJ here, and, as these tiny pests 
are also to be found in many other places in Japan, it is well 
to be provided with a pair of goggles. At the hotel we sat 
down to a dinner of seventeen dishes, from the soup to the 
coffee, including fillets of schnappers, mountain thrush, and 
grilled chestnuts. 

From Kobe we retraced our route by the Sany5 Railway, 
which offers pretty views at first, where it runs near the 
shore, but afterward it is uninteresting, to Himeji, where 
there is a well-preserved old castle of seven storeys, sur- 
rounded by trees, and making, when seen from a distance, 
outlined against the hills in the background, a very pretty 
picture. The building is very high, and in tliis sense one of 
the largest castles ; but its walls do not enclose as large an 
area as many others in Japan. From Himeji there is a rail- 
way up the valley of the Ichi-kawa to Ikuno, where we had a 
good eight-mat room at the Shibahashi Inn near the mouth 
of the silver mine. 

From Ikuno, which is on the watershed between the 
Inland and Japan seas, to Yura, on the coast of the latter, 
is about fifty -two miles through a country largely devoted to 
sericulture ; and mulberry-trees are to be seen all along the 

Q 



226 THE MAIN ISLAND 

route. Barley is also grown, and a little wheat. It took us 
twelve hours to cover this distance ; but it was pouring with 
rain all day, except during half an hour at noon-time, and 
the police inspection of jinrikishas was fixed for the follow- 
ing day, so that it was difficult to get coolies to go very far 
from their villages. On the other hand, the road is mostly 
down hill, and we had two coolies for each jinrikisha, except 
between Komori and Tokatsu. This is our itinerary from 
Ikuno. 

To Takeda by hasha, resting on way at Tachi- miles hrs. min. 

waki, good road down valley of Maruma-gawa . 11 2 30 

To Mokata, 1|^ hours to Yanase at the top of the 
pass between the provinces of Tajima and 

Tamba, | hour down hill 13^ 2 

Rest for lunch at Mokata 45 

To Amadzu, with fresh coolies and over an ex- 
cellent road, to Kainezamatsu in 1^ hours, and 
for 10 minutes over very bad road to Amadzu 

on Otonase-gawa 9^ 1 25 

To Komori with same coolies in a downpour of 

rain 3| 10 

Delay at Komori 20 

To Ogawa. Down west bank of Yuragawa with 
one coolie. Including delay of 45 minutes at 

Takatsu in getting coolies 8^ 2 45 

Delay at Ogawa 15 

To Yura . 6 10 

511 12 0~ 



We were refused accommodation at the Omori Inn, and 
also at the one opposite to it; and also were obliged to solicit 
the intervention of the police to secure us shelter. This 
they quickly managed, and we were given an eight-mat room 
whose only peculiarity was the absence of the usual alcove, 
(tohonomd). Once inside, we found that there were no other 
guests in the inn, but that every room was filled with the 
great flat baskets containing silkworms and mulberry leaves ; 
and it was owing to the trouble and risk of moving these, that 
we were refused admittance. 

There is a splendid road from Yura, through Kunda, along 



THE MAIN ISLAND 227 

the coast to a tunnel whicli pierces tlie neck of the peninsula 
on the east side of the Bay of Miyazu. Descending a short 
distance down the hill from the mouth of the tunnel you get 
a view of Ama-no-Hashidate ("The Ladder of Heaven"). 
What you see is a line of pine-trees on a narrow strip of sand 
stretching across the mouth of an inlet on the opposite side 
of the bay. A powerful glass fails to disclose anything re- 
markable in the view from this side, so we continue down 
hill to Miyazu, where we leave our luggage at the wharf, and 
follow the road around the bay to Chionji, whence we are fer- 
ried across the five-hundred-foot channel to the point of 
Ama-no-Hashidate. We find ourselves on a tongue of sand 
about two hundred feet wide^ and we walk under the double 
row of old pine-trees which cover it for a couple of miles to 
its base at the village of Ejiri. We had seen the " Ladder 
of Heaven," and had failed to be impressed by anything 
beyond the limitless imagination of the Japanese in finding 
wondrous beauty in the scene, and their boundless deception 
in the pretence. However, we had six hours on our hands, 
so we continued our walk up a steep and barren hill, across 
a plateau to a temple gate through an avenue of fine old 
trees, and up a flight of about one hundred steps to the sum- 
mit of Nareaiji-san. The temple of Nareaiji is one of the 
" Thirty -three Places " dedicated to Kwannon, and like many 
of the others, totally lacking in interest ; but the views from 
its weather-worn balconies are among the most pleasing in 
all Japan, and well worth the trouble of the journey from 
Kobe. The " Ladder of Heaven " is not included in the 
panorama, but the bold promontories and peninsulas of the 
coast of the Province of Tango, the mouth of the Yura-gawa, 
the bays and gulfs closer at hand, the distant mountains, the 
surrounding trees, and the fleets of fishing-boats in the open 
sea, all combine to make a series of beautiful land- and sea- 
scapes which do much to console one for the disappointment 
caused by Ama-no-Hashidate. 

We retraced our steps to where the road forks to the vil- 
lages of Ejiri and Nakano, which are both parts of Fuchu- 
mura lying further to the west, and turned down the pathway 



228 THE MAIN ISLAND 

to Nakano, about an hour's walk from the temple. Thence 
to Miyadzu, which was en fete in honour of the visit of a 
royal prince, where we embarked for Kanaga-saki, the port 
for Tsuruga. This is an all-night voyage ; and having had 
similar experiences in these tiny coasting steamers, we were 
prepared to sleep on deck, and generally to " rough it." Our 
steamer, the Tansan-maru^ was of 52 tons' register, and had a 
nine-horse-power engine with boilers certified up to Q^ pounds' 
pressure. The " first cabin " has a floor surface of 12 by 8 
feet, and is 5 feet high. The vessel is entitled to carry 9 
first-class passengers ; 11 second-class ; and 35 third-class, 
or deck, passengers. When we went on board there were 
13 in the " first cabin " and 16 in the second, and the deck 
was equally overcrowded. However, we found a place for 
our rugs ; and all went well for a couple of hours, until we 
got out of the lee of the land, and began to get dirty weather. 
Our crazy little steamer creaked and trembled at every wave, 
and pitched and rolled and shipped buckets of spray until 
the deck was too wet to lie on, and to add to our discomfort, 
it began to rain, in squalls at first, and then steadily. I pro- 
cured, for a consideration, the purser's room on deck, a kennel 
2 feet high and less than the size of a mat, and this I shared 
with the fleas from 10.30 p.m. to 4.30 a.m., when I had to 
give it up. At 6.30 we were off the light-house on Tateishi- 
zaki, and an hour and a half later we landed at Kanaga-saki. 
We went to the Komechichi Inn at Tsuruga for a bath and 
breakfast before taking train via Miabara to Baba. The 
country along the railway is uninteresting ; although there 
are occasional glimpses of Lake Biwa, and one more extended 
view which includes the island of Chikubushima, one of 
Kwannon's Thirty -three Holy Places. We made our head- 
quarters at the Minarai-tei Hotel at Otsu, where they have 
some tiny bedrooms furnished in European style, and an 
English-speaking cook who gave us many good dishes, and 
who came and sat with us while we ate them, so that he 
might gauge our appreciation of his cooking and at the same 
time practise his English. Lake Biwa (or Omi) has its " cele- 
brated eight views " (Jiahkei)^ as have most other localities 



THE MAIN ISLAND 229 

in Japan ; and, in common with the other hakkei^ it is seldom 
that more than one of these " views " can be seen in the 
course of a season. The manner in which the list is made 
up may be gathered from the following catalogue of the 
world-famous hakkei of St. James's Park, London, which 
may be enjoyed from the suspension-bridge across the 
duck-pond : — 

1. The Chinese Crisis at the Foreign Office. 

2. The Trooping of the Colours at the Horse Guards. 

3. The Jabez Balfour Scandal over Whitehall Court. 

4. A Garden Party at Marlborough House. 

6. The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. 

6. The Evening Lights of Queen Anne's Mansions. 

7. The Proclamation of Edward VIL at St. James's 
Palace. 

8. Big Ben Tolling Midday. 

However, we saw what there was to be seen of the locali- 
ties of Lake Biwa's hakkei^ such as the view from the obelisk at 
Miidera over the fiat plains and barren mountains surround- 
ing the lake ; the bridges over the Seta-gawa ; the pine-tree 
at Karasaki ; Ishiyamadera, a pretty little temple whose 
grounds are filled with fantastic piles of dark rocks, situated 
on a hill covered with cryptomeria and maple-trees, the view 
of which is spoiled by a lot of tea-houses ; and as many more 
places less interesting. 

The pine-tree of Karasaki is said to be " one of the most 
curious trees in the world " ; and so it is. Here is a tree of 
great age, with neither height nor proportion, distorted out 
of all natural shape, patched up with plaster, propped up 
with stones, and supported on a small forest of rough-hewn 
timbers. The trunk is about twelve feet in diameter, and 
might have reached the height of one hundred feet ; but the 
tree has been forced into branching out laterally and, while 
it does this in every direction over a large area, the branches 
are unable to sustain their own weight, and must therefore 
be kept from falling by artificial means. 

We found the same annoying flies at Miidera as at Nuno- 
biki, and we also found beggars there. Beggars are not 



230 THE MAIN ISLAND 

very common, as the care of the ordinary paupers in Japan 
devolves on the family and not on the public, and, with the 
exception of those on the temple steps at Miidera, and the 
leprous rabble on the road to Kamakura, we seldom saw any. 
The poor people were very grateful for the smallest coin; 
but they did not beg. 

It takes an hour and ten minutes to do the seven miles 
down the Lake Biwa Canal from Otsu, and two and one-half 
to three hours to get the boats back, by towing them in the 
open, and pulling them through the tunnels by means of a 
wire rope railing let into the right-hand walls. The first 
and longest tunnel takes twenty minutes to go through, 
then an open cutting for thirty-five minutes, during which 
you pass a pagoda and the mausoleum of a former Mikado, 
then a short tunnel for a minute, and five minutes later an- 
other tunnel, which takes seven minutes, and opens into a 
basin from which boats may be taken in cradles, by means 
of a wire rope cable, down an incline to the continuation of 
the canal through Ky5to. We spent the morning in Awata 
and Kiyomidzu, inspecting factories of porcelain and faience 
which have been located in these quarters of Kyoto for close 
on 250 years. One of the oldest existing factories is that of 
Takahachi Dohachi, where imitation Arita-ware was made 
eighty years ago, and which now turns out faience as well as 
porcelain. Kanzan Denshichi produces only porcelain. Of 
the descendants of the original potters, Tanzan Seikai makes 
both varieties, while Hozan Bunzo and Kink5zan S5bei make 
only faience. The latter product is known as Awata-ware, 
and the porcelain as Kiyomidzu- ware. At Kinkozan's fac- 
tory we watched the potter turning his wheel with a short 
stick, and saw the nine large kilns whose fires were being 
fed through a narrow opening with carefully dried sticks of 
wood. Then we settled down in the showroom to select 
flower-vases (hana-ihe)^ incense burners (Jcoro^, and other 
articles beautifully decorated by Keizan, Sozan, Ikeda, Mat- 
suda, and Nakamura, all artists of local celebrity. 

Upon the conclusion of our stay in Ky5to, we went by 
train to Yamada, in Ise, changing carriages at Kusatsu and 



THE MAIN ISLAND 231 

at Kameyama. The pilgrimage to the temples of Ise, the 
Mecca of all good Shintoists, is looked upon as a sacred duty, 
which, having been performed, entitles the pilgrim to a con- 
sideration and respect not otherwise readily accorded. The 
priests sell kakemono, inscribed with " lucky characters " and 
stamped with the temple seal, which are highly prized and 
carefully preserved by the pilgrim when he has returned 
to his home. The seal, which is used throughout Japan in 
place of a signature on all documents, legal or otherwise, 
is usually a square or round combination of characters 
"stamped" on the paper with vermilion ink. 

There is a broad gravel walk from the railway station to 
the Gekii Temple, and, as you advance along it, you will 
notice that the policemen wear the uniform of the Mikado's 
special force at Tokyo. One of them will probably inform 
you that photographs may not be taken without a special 
permit. The Ise temples are interesting not only as a 
religious but as an architectural tradition. Every twenty 
years the temples are rebuilt on alternate sites. Where the 
previous buildings stood in 1889 are tiny huts about three 
feet high, to protect the sanctums from pollution. The 
buildings are not repaired during their life of twenty years, 
unless they chance to be destroyed by fire, as the Naikii 
Temple was partially the year before our visit. What you 
see is a collection of huts constructed of timber upon ancient 
Japanese models which point to a Malayan origin. The 
roofs are thatched with chamaecyparis bark ; and these huts, 
containing a few sacred emblems that are never shewn, stand 
in a field of clean stones and gravel surrounded by four 
timber fences which enclose an area of nearly two acres. 
Behind a screen there is an entrance in the first fence oppo- 
site a gateway with a very thin white curtain suspended over 
the opening. The excuse given by Viscount Mori's assassin 
in 1889 for his deed was that the viscount had some months ' 
before lifted the curtain with his walking stick, in order to 
obtain a better view, and in doing this had defiled the holy 
place. The viscount would, if alive to-day, have no diffi- 
culty in seeing through the curtain, so thin is its texture, or 



232 THE MAIN ISLAND 

around it when the lightest zephyr blows it about. But a 
still better view of the enclosure and the tops of the build- 
ings can be had through the second fence and over the 
third and fourth, from a point a few yards to the right 
of this gateway. There is really nothing worth seeing in 
the way of buildings; but the trees in the grounds are 
magnificent, and the place is more impressive, more like a 
shrine for believers, and less like a picnic ground, than any 
in Japan. But the circus element is not done away with ; it 
is only a little further removed from the shrine than usual. 
Yamada has some special frivolities of its own. One is 
called " O Sugi O Tama," where you are invited to throw 
coppers at a girl's head for the amusement of seeing her 
agility in ducking. It seemed poor fun ; but we threw the 
coppers only to find that they did not take the trouble to 
duck, but simply turned the face away. But it is at night 
that Yamada throws off all religious disguise, and comes out 
frankly as a place for dissipation and debauchery. The Ise 
Ondo, celebrated as a dance of great antiquity, and considered 
by some to be very graceful, is a thinly- veiled arrangement 
by which the brothel-keeper displays the inmates of his house 
for the approval and selection of his clients. You notify the 
proprietor of the " inn " where the " dance " is given that you 
desire to witness it ; and, at the appointed hour, a " private 
maid" calls for you at your inn and acts as your escort. 
You are first taken to a waiting-room, and the maid brings 
in handsome old lacquer candlesticks (shokudai) and fire-box 
QiahasJii) and porcelain cups of Imari-ware for the tea, which 
is presently served. When all is prepared you are taken to 
the " dancing-room," which is a large square room hung round 
with lanterns on three sides. On the fourth side you take 
your place on the floor with a small table, for sake and other 
luxuries, before you. The floor on three sides is mov- 
able for a distance of three feet from the screens that serve 
as walls, and is slowly raised from below, until it is six inches 
to a foot above the rest of the room, and a smaller lacquer 
railing rises about a foot above this platform or dancing-stage. 
Six girls who compose the orchestra come in and sit before 




S5 S 



S -^ 



THE MAIN ISLAND 233 

us in the hollow square. Two of them plaj on samisen with 
the plectrum, two on koki/u with bows, and two with the 
hands on drums. The orchestra plays a march in common 
time ; and at either side of the room a dozen girls enter, hop 
up on the stage, and slowly advance around it until they 
meet in the centre. Here they stop and sway their bodies 
and hands, keeping time with the musicians who have now 
burst into song. Then the line is broken in the middle, and 
the two halves file past each other until the " dancers " who 
were at the ends are now at the centre, and the waves of the 
hands and swaying of the body are repeated during a few 
minutes before the " dancers " file off, and the show is over. 
You are taken back to the waiting-room, and if you ask for 
your bill, you will find a charge of three and one-half yen for 
the dance, about three yen for sundries such as tea, cakes, 
sake, and cigarettes, and you will "tip" the private maid 
half a yen, making seven yen in all. You will have been 
given a very accurate coloured picture of the dance; and 
you will wonder as you look at it why it should be so freely 
patronised, and to what it owes its popularity. But if you 
are better posted, you will use your picture for the purpose 
of noting on it the girl or girls with whom you desire a 
closer acquaintance; and, when you return to the waiting- 
room, you may request the maid to bring the girl who was, 
say, fourth from the right end. The maid goes off and 
presently returns to say that number four is " engaged," so 
your second choice is the second from the centre on the left, 
and the maid goes off again and fetches her. She tells you 
her name is Shinaji (" Real Sweet"), that she is eighteen years 
old, and has been an inmate of the house since the age of 
eight, when she entered as a prostitute's servant. Shinaji is 
very short, but so generously developed as to lead us to 
suspect that she has deducted at least two years from her 
age. Shinaji, or whoever you have chosen, will lose no time 
in asking you to her room ; before entering which she will 
change her dancing costume for a more convenient garb, 
and rub the red paint off her lips with a piece of paper. If 
you speak a little Japanese, Shinaji may seize the occasion to 



234 THE MAIN ISLAND 

improve her knowledge of English by requesting you to 
translate for her such words, mainly physiological, as will 
assist her in her profession, and she will repeat them care- 
fully, and note the sounds on a slip of paper. When you are 
ready to leave, the private maid escorts you to your inn (in 
our case the Abura-ya), where the rats, mosquitoes, and fleas 
are your only bedfellows. The next morning at breakfast 
you may receive a letter from your companion of the previous 
evening, a scroll a yard long and six inches wide, thanking you 
for your patronage, and trusting to see you soon again. But 
we had made other arrangements, and after leaving the inn, 
provided with a printed letter of introduction to innkeepers 
in towns we intended to visit, we went to the Naiku temple 
to see what is really an ancient religious dance. 

The Tcagura is performed at many Shint5 temples, but 
nowhere, perhaps, with such pomp and ceremony as at Ise. 
There are three grades, to suit various purses, for the dance 
is given only upon the order of some one who pays the bill ; 
but the difference between the " small " and the " great- 
great " is only in the numbers of performers employed. In 
some places you sit in the open air in front of the hagura-do ; 
but at the Naikii temple you sit at one end of a large room 
where you are partitioned off by a light wooden railing. 
You must sit upon, or cover up, your feet, and keep them 
away from the direction of the "god-shelf." When you are 
in position a priest enters bearing a branch of saJcaki, the 
sacred Shinto tree used at festivals and funerals, and after 
bowing to the altar he turns to you and waves over you the 
sakaki branch while he mutters the formulas of the ceremony 
of purification (harai, or driving away of evil spirits). He 
withdraws ; and six other priests, wearing the ancient Korean 
cap, made apparently of black wire-gauze, enter and take 
their places, three on each side of the room near the altar. 
Two of these play upon reed instruments, two on the koto^ 
which is a sort of harp or zithern placed flat on the floor 
before the performer, and two manipulate the drums and 
wooden clappers. The musicians struck up, and four little 
girls, about ten to twelve years of age, made their entrance. 



THE MAIN ISLAND 235 

They are clad in white kimono over flowing red silk trousers 
(Jiakama) which are about eighteen inches longer than their 
legs, so that when they walk their feet are concealed and 
they seem to be advancing on their knees. At the neck are 
folds of white over red. Their faces are painted in the formal 
dead white which extends just behind the ears, and ends in 
a straight line on either side, leaving the back of the neck in 
its natural colour. Their hair is combed out behind and tied 
with a cord and tassel, and they wear gilt (probably paper) 
tiaras with a twig of sakaki sticking out above. Two of 
them, in addition, carry in their hands branches of sakaki 
decorated with ribbons. Two other girls without the tiaras 
or ribbons, but otherwise similarly dressed, bring in food and 
other offerings to the first four, who advance in couples to the 
altar and there deposit them. When all the offerings are 
placed on the altar the white-robed chief priest, wearing the 
horse-hair gauze cap of the pattern formerly worn by the 
Mikado, slowly walks in, advances to the altar, reads some 
" golden words," and slowly retires from the room. Then 
the first four girls do a pas de quatre, which consists of a few 
swaying movements of the arms and body, and afterward 
bring back, in couples, from the altar, the offerings of food 
and drink, which, they place in the hands of the other two 
girls. This finishes the " dance," and the girls and musicians 
depart ; but the priest who performed the harai ceremony 
now returns and presents to you the food-offerings, together 
with the little red saucers of unglazed earthenware (kawa- 
rake) upon which, they were carried to the altar. He also 
serves you with as much sake as you require ; and you take 
your departure from the Temple of the Sun Goddess, Ama- 
terasu. 

After a stroll through the grove of splendid old trees sur- 
rounding Naikii Temple, we started on a four hours' walk to 
Futami. We first crossed the little stream, where the pious 
pilgrims coming from the opposite direction perform their 
ablutions before approaching the shrines. Then began the 
easy slope of Asakuma- (or Asama-) yama, which we ascended 
steadily for a couple of hours. We were rewarded by ex- 



236 THE MAIN ISLAND 

tensive views from the oku-no-in or " back-gate " and from 
the Tofu-ya, a tea-house at the summit, which from an ele- 
vation of 1300 feet affords a vast panorama of the mountain 
ranges of sixteen provinces to the north and east, with the 
Bay of Owari in the foreground. On a clear day Tateyama 
in Etchu, and Asama-yama in Kozuke, both over 160 miles 
away " as the crow flies," can be easily seen to the north- 
east ; while Fuji's cone, the upper part of which is still cov- 
ered with snow, nearer by at least fifty miles, and more to 
the east, towers 12,400 feet above the level of the sea. After 
tiffin at the inn at Futami we went along the seashore to see 
the trumpery little Myoto-seki, two rocks, connected wdth 
ropes of straw, which are almost submerged at high tide, and 
left exposed at low water. 

The road from Futami to Toba is a very pretty one, winding 
its way between a number of characteristic Japanese hills on 
the seashore. The view from Hiyori-yama is certainly one 
of the most beautiful in Japan. It is less extended than 
that from Asakuma-yama ; but Fuji is in the background, 
and Owari Bay, strewn with islands and studded with sails, 
spreads from one's feet to the distant north ; and, with one's 
back turned to Fuji, there is a scene of hill and dale that 
does not suffer by contrast. We had intended to go by 
steamer from Toba to Sliingu, to visit the waterfalls of Nachi, 
the highest in Japan, and a prominent landmark for vessels 
coasting from K5be to Yokonama. But we found that the 
steamer would not leave for at least a week, that even then 
there was considerable uncertainty as to its sailing, and more 
as to its return, so we gave up the excursion and started for 
Nagoya. 

On the 23d of May barley was being harvested in Ise, 
and the rice being planted out. The terraced fields, after 
having been ploughed, spaded, and hoed, had been reduced 
to liquid mud by the treadings of man and beast ; the straw 
from last year's crop and a liberal dressing of night-soil had 
also been trodden in, and about two inches of water covered 
the ground. A thin rope was stretched across the field to 
mark the rows, and the green paddy was being brought 



THE MAIN ISLAND 237 

from the seed-bed and transplanted in bunclies of five or six 
blades. 

We visited the Portland cement works near Yamada, and 
were cordially received by the manager, who had been, he 
said, with Armstrong's at Newcastle. He told me that there 
were twenty works in Japan, producing an average of about 
eighty casks of Portland cement a day, or in all, nearly 
one hundred thousand tons per annum. An increasing pro- 
portion of this is being exported to China and other parts of 
Asia, and even to San Francisco, and the export value is 
given at about 22 yen (or 44 shillings) a ton of 2240 lbs. 
The limestone is crushed and mixed vnth clay, from " salt- 
ings" near by, which has been dried on the drying-floors, 
and with underburnt clinker, all in carefully weighed-out 
proportions. The mixture is ground by large edge-runners 
to an impalpable powder, and passed through a hundred- 
mesh sieve, that is to say, one with ten thousand holes to the 
square inch. The powder is made into a stiff paste with 
water, and pressed by hand into small bricks, which are dried 
and burnt with coal in bottle-shaped kilns. There were six 
such kilns at this factory. After the burning the cement- 
clinker is carefully picked, and the underburnt pieces thrown 
out. The clinker is then ground, and the cement passed 
through a hundred-mesh sieve, stored eighteen inches deep 
in the warehouse, and there turned over with shovels during 
a period of three weeks, at the end of which time it is filled 
into sacks or casks. 

The railway to Nagoya, by way of Tsu, Kameyama, Yok- 
kaichi, and Kawana, passes through a flat country, whose 
principal spring crops are barley and rape-seed, around the 
western coast and the head of Owari Bay. 



CHAPTER XXI 

NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

Cloisonne and Porcelain. The Castle. The Hongwanji Temples. 
Maiko and Geisha. The Game of " Go." The " Fox " Game. 
Chon Kina. Shidzuoka. The Waterfalls of Kami-ide. Mount 
Fuji. The Maiden's Pass. Miyanoshita. Hakone. Atami. 
Camphor. A Fishing-fleet steered from the Shore. Over the 
Mountains. 

Nagoya is a great mart for cloisonne and porcelain. Most 
of the latter comes from Seto, about two hours away by jin- 
rikisha. There pottery has been made from time immemorial, 
and there the art of making porcelain was introduced from 
China toward the middle of the thirteenth century. At the 
present time the manufacture of porcelain is mostly on for- 
eign models for export. Of the cloisonne makers of Nagoya, 
Hattori exhibited the finest examples of delicate workman- 
ship in brilliant enamels, and good work was shown us by 
Hayashi, Kawaguti, and Tomiki, while Ando was experiment- 
ing with "wireless cloisonne." Hattori also made a specialty 
of porcelain vases decorated with carved and polished lacquer. 

The castle may only be visited by means of a passport 
procured through a Minister in Toky5 ; but it is the only 
monument worth coming to Nagoya to see. A courteous 
officer met us at the gate and escorted us first to the keep, a 
stone building with five storeys above the ground floor. The 
top floor is a room of 126 mats (2268 square feet) ; and from 
its windows are extended views over the broad plains sur- 
rounding the town and the more distant mountains to the 
west and north, as well as of the sea to the south. Above 
the roof are the two famous golden dolphins, and at the 
bottom of the building is a celebrated well. The building 

238 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 239 

containing the prince's apartments, as well as the keep, is 
unfurnished, and during the period of its use as barracks 
man}- of its artistic decorations were defaced ; but the sliding 
screens (^fusuma) between the A'arious rooms are artistically 
decorated, one set of screens by Ukiyoe Matahei being par- 
ticularly fine. The double room used by the shogun in 
giving audiences is elaborately embellished ; and the portion, 
measuring eighteen mats, reserved for the shogun, has a 
curious coffered ceiling. Both this and the fifteen-mat 
portion, whose floor is on a lower level and was intended to 
accommodate those received in audience, have ramma carved 
by Hidari Jingoro. 

The great Higashi Hongwanji Temple is not so well kept 
up as the temples of the Monto sect usually are. The paper 
panels in the outer screens (shoji) were dirty and torn, and 
there was an air of dilapidation and neglect about it. But 
there are well-executed carvings in the timbers supporting 
the roof of the colonnade, as well as in those supporting the 
higher roof of the main structure. The temple grounds con- 
tain some " weeping " cherry-trees, and are enclosed in walls 
painted with the five parallel horizontal white lines on a 
yellow ground which are used to indicate Royal possessions. 
The Hongwanji temples are entitled to use this Imperial 
mark by reason of the founder of the sect, Shinran Shonin, 
having been a descendant of one of the mikados. 

We stayed at the Shinachii Inn and were not dissatisfied ; 
but we were informed by friends that the Nagoya Hotel is 
really first-class, and has modern sanitary arrangements. 

Nagoya shows its progressiveness by the adoption of two 
modern methods of locomotion, the bicycle and the electric 
trolley. The former is more common here than elsewhere in 
Japan ; but the type in vogue is the small " bone-shaker " 
ridden in England in "the seventies." Either some local 
maker has duplicated what he thought was the latest thing in 
bicycles, or some enterprising merchant has got rid of the 
antiquated stock of English manufacturers. The electric 
trams in Kyoto are accompanied by a hetto who runs ahead 
to clear the way ; but they are sufficiently advanced in Nagoya 



240 NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

to dispense with tlie hetto^ and to trust to luck to avoid acci- 
dents. At any rate, one of the trolley cars dashed into my 
jinrildsha, pitching me out and throwing the coolie down. 
Fortunately, the jinrikisha sustained the only serious dam- 
age, as both of us managed to scramble out of the way. 

We had read that the " Nagoya maiko and geisha are cele- 
brated throughout Japan for their beauty, grace, and taste 
in dress," and we were informed that the Kimparo Inn was 
the best place to see them, so we went there to dinner and 
had a troupe of dancing and singing girls to entertain us. 
This they did with the various more or less graceful sway- 
ings of the body and movements of the arms and hands 
which constitute Japanese dancing, and with instructions 
in go, and kitsune ken. 

The former is played with men (^go-ishi) on a square board 
Qgo-han) ruled with 17 perpendicular and 17 horizontal lines, 
making, with the exterior lines, 361 points of intersection. 
In its simpler form, when one of the players is provided with 
white men and the other with black, which they alternately 
place on the crossing of the lines, the one who succeeds in 
placing five men in a line wins. This is the game known in 
Europe as Go Bang. A more difficult variation is where the 
players endeavour to surround areas on the board with their 
men, the winner being the one who has succeeded in fencing 
in the greatest number of squares. 

Kitsune hen — fox game with the hands — is played in 
a great many different ways, governed by certain relative 
conventional values given to positions of the hands; and the 
object is to take, on an arranged signal, such a position as 
will be superior to that of your opponent. The most popular 
positions are those representing a fox, a man, and a gun. 
The hands over the head signify fox, the hands on the knees 
represent man, and the hands in the position of taking aim 
with a rifle, mean gun. On a signal, given by one of them, 
the players simultaneously take some one of these three posi- 
tions. If one takes the position of fox and the other of man, 
fox wins, as he is supposed to be more clever than man. If 
one takes fox and the other gun, gun wins, as it can kill fox. 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 241 

If one takes man and the other gnn, man wins, as he can use 
gun. The skill lies in anticipating your opponent's move- 
ments, and when that is not possible, the chances of winning 
or losing are quite equal. 

Chon Jcina is a development of kitsune ken with a song-and- 
dance accompaniment. The air, — probably the most melodi- 
ous in Japanese music, — has been made familiar to Europeans 
by Sidney Jones in " The Geisha " ; and his version of the 
words has found its way to Japan, and is called the " new 
verse." The Avords to the first four bars of the first verse 
are the same as in " The Geisha," but instead of " Nagasaki, 
Yokohama, Hakodate hoi''^ they sing three bars of "nonsense 
verse," ending with the word " yo«," which is the signal to 
take a position for ken. The first verse is usually sung 
seated. The second verse, beginning chon tate, is sung 
standing up and hopping about in time with the music. In 
the third verse beginning chon nuge, the loser of the ken 
takes off a personal ornament, or article of clothing, until 
one of the players is reduced to a state of nudity. Chon 
nezo is the beginning of the fourth verse, where the loser 
of the forfeit " takes the position assumed in sleep " ; and 
the fifth verse, opening with chon aiko, obliges the loser to 
match or follow the movements of the winner. In theory, 
as well as in practice, chon kina may be taken as a charming 
nursery game, especially adapted to induce the " kiddies " to 
get to bed and to sleep. How it may be perverted the gaiko 
of Nagoya showed us, with a wealth of detail that left nothing 
to the imagination, and we were not astonished to learn that 
chon kina as performed at the tea-houses has come under 
the ban of the authorities. 

From Nagoya we went by an early morning train to Shid- 
zuoka ; and, leaving our luggage at the Hotel Daito-kwan, 
run on European lines, took jinrikishas with two coolies each 
for a five hours' round, which included the temples of Kuno- 
zan, Tesshiiji and Ryiigeji. Kuno-zan is a precipitous hill 
about five hundred feet high, situated on a peninsula jutting 
out into Suruga Bay. The steep cliff facing the shore is 
ascended by Alights of zigzag stone steps built into its face. 



242 NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

Tlie view from the pine-tree at the top is exceptionally 
fine. The village of Nekoya lies between the base of the 
cliff and the bay, and a majority of its inhabitants could be 
seen engaged in fishing with nets which were taken out in 
boats and dropped, and then hauled in from the beach. Look- 
ing south is the whole length of the bay opening out into the 
Pacific Ocean, while to the east of the bay, separating it from 
Segami Bay, lies the Peninsula of Izu. But there are other 
things besides the view to be seen ; and the courteous old 
priest, wearing a silk-paper Korean cap, who conducted us 
around, pointed out the oratory with its pictures of the Thirty- 
six Poets, the shrine of Yakushi on the same terrace, the 
wooden horse of Hidari Jingord, and the stone sotoba (under 
which leyasu was originally buried), consisting of an octag- 
onal monolith, surmounted by a ball, with a pagoda-roof 
top. He showed us, in the building where in former days 
the kagura was danced, ancient armour, lacquer three hun- 
dred years old, and a clock made in Madrid in the year 
1581. Our attention was called, before leaving, to a pair 
of Chinese stone lions, 280 years old. The one said to be 
the female is represented with a single horn, while the male 
is represented with an open mouth, and the pair might easily 
be made to do duty as the supporters of the British Royal 
Arms. 

Ryugeji, with its enclosure containing prickly pears and a 
species of sago-palm, did not detain us long ; but we lingered 
some time at Tesshiiji to enjoy the view from Fudaraku-san, 
a hill overlooking the town of Shimizu, including the villa- 
gers' rice-fields and fish-preserves, and the apparently land- 
locked upper end of Suruga Bay. This is the view Murray 
says is "simply magnificent, recalling a Claude Lorrain." 
It certainly does not recall to me any of the fifty paintings 
or sixty odd drawings of this master I have had opportuni- 
ties of studying. 

Returning to Shizuoka, we invested in some of the beauti- 
ful and dainty baskets made of split bamboo, and the follow- 
ing morning visited the two well-known temples of Rinzaiji 
and Sengen. The former contains a number of relics of 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 243 

leyasu, the great general, Avho founded the dynasty of Toku- 
gawa shoguns, which ruled Japan for over 250 years, until 
the revolution of 1868 gave the present Mikado the actual 
power which had been so long usurped by the sh5guns. 
There is also shown a piece of embroidery 350 years old, and 
kaJcemotio by celebrated artists. But the artistic decorations 
of Sengen are much more interesting. The ceiling of the 
great hall of the oratory, which is supported by splendid 
lacquered pillars of heyaki, contains two painted dragons, 
one of which is by the great artist Kano Motonobu, whose 
father founded, in the fifteenth century, the school of paint- 
ing known by his name. The gates to the temple enclosure 
and to the two chapels behind the oratory, and the newer 
S5sha, all contain remarkable wood carvings ; and there are 
carvings of trees and blossoms by Hidari Jingor5. 

From Shizuoka we made an excursion to the waterfalls of 
Kami-ide, going by railway to Suzukawa, and then by a tram- 
way, constructed for the cdnvenience of a large paper-mill, to 
Omiya. Here paper is made from the mitsumata, or " paper- 
trees," which grow in abundance around Fuji's base. Three 
hours by basha brought us to a tea-house from which a path, 
turning sharp to the left and crossing the Shiba-gawa by a 
bridge, leads in a quarter of a mile to the Shira-ito-no-taki 
or Floss-Silk Cascades, and a hundred yards away another 
branch of the stream forms the Nennen-fuchi. The falls vary 
from 30 to 50 feet wide, and the volume of water is not very 
great, but they are very pretty, and from the bridge over the 
river we had our nearest clear view of Mount Fuji, a view in 
full sunlight from its base at our feet to its summit, 12,000 
feet above us, and perhaps twenty miles away, by the most 
direct path. 

"Matchless Fuji-yama, incomparable Fuji-san," is very 
much like Mount Shasta, which rises from a plain 2500 feet 
above the sea to the height of 14,400 feet. Fuji practically 
rises from the seashore to an altitude of about 12,400 feet. 
Each stands alone, and is an almost perfect right cone with 
a truncated vertex. But Mount Shasta, owing to its greater 
elevation, and to being in a higher latitude, is covered with 



244 NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

perpetual snow, while Fuji almost entirely loses its snowy 
cap during two months of the summer, and its bare 
flanks and summit disclose the uninteresting appearance of 
the gigantic ash-heap that it really is. A near view of Fuji 
in summer takes away all its romance ; but seen before the 
snow has disappeared from its upper half, and from a dis- 
tance of a hundred miles or so, it has a certain beauty and 
grandeur of its own that is at any rate greater than any 
other mountain in Japan. 

The sun was sinking when we started on our return ; but 
the inns on the way up looked so dirty that we determined 
to sleep at Suzakawa. The road was very bad and full of 
deep ruts, and it took us five and a half hours by hasha, 
partly in the bright moonlight, to do the fifteen miles down 
hill to the Koshu Inn. We might just as well have put up 
with less inviting quarters, as the fleas kept us awake most 
of the night, and we were heartily glad to leave early in the 
morning, and to take the train for Gotemba. In the prov- 
ince of Suruga, which we had just travelled through, the 
rice-mills were usually on the principle of water-wheels 
" dropping " stamps, as in a quartz-mill. The red camellias, 
the forebears of those to be found in European gardens, were 
still in blossom the day we started from Gotemba on our 
thirteen-mile walk to Miyanoshita. 

There are many paths leading up to Otome-t5ge, the 
Maiden's Pass, between the summits of Kanayama and 
Shakushiyama ; but they all converge into a zigzag path 
near the top, which we reached in one hour and three- 
quarters from the inn at Gotemba. From the Pass, which 
looks back across the valley to Fuji, there is a path to the 
summit of Kanayama, from which there is a beautiful view 
to the east down the valley of the Haya-kawa from its source 
in Hakone Lake to its mouth in Sagami Bay. To the north 
you overlook the valley of Sakawa-gawa and the T5kaido 
Railway ; to the west lies Fuji and the valleys around three 
of its sides ; while to the southeast, close at hand, is Hakone 
Lake, a sheet of water about a mile wide and between three 
and four miles long. There is a steep descent at first from 




DoGASHiMA Cascade, Miyanoshita, Japan. 
Photographed by Farsari, Yokohama. 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 245 

the Pass, then the path forks and we go to the left clown the 
mountain-side, which is here covered with rank grass and 
patches of dwarf trees. The fork to the right leads to Ha- 
kone by way of the cattle farm, where a few cows are kept 
to supply visitors with milk and butter. On the way down 
there are, across the valley from Usui-t5ge, two hills covered 
with trees, but it is not until you reach Miyagino and cross 
the stream to Kiga, that you enter a well-wooded valley 
watered by several streams which form many cascades on 
their way down to Miyanoshita and the sea. 

Miyanoshita is one of the show places of Japan, and, as 
it can be reached from Yokohama in four and a half hours 
and from Tokyo in an hour more, it is a favourite resort for 
residents in the port and the capital. In addition to many 
natural advantages it has that rare attraction in Japan of a 
first-class hotel having modern sanitary arrangements and 
offering to its clients accommodation and food, either in 
European or Japanese style, as good as can be found in the 
country. Yamaguchi, the enterprising proprietor of the 
Fujiya, has furthermore the reputation of being what Pierre 
Loti calls iin agent discret pour croisements des races, whose 
mediation is eagerly sought by European bachelors in search 
of what is euphemistically called "a Japanese wife." 

There are strolls in the valley to the various cascades, and 
hills to climb for the sake of the views, as well as longer 
excursions ; but if you enter or leave the valley by the 
Otome-toge, its other principal attractions may be advan- 
tageously seen in a day's excursion of eleven hours. Leav- 
ing Fujiya at 8 a.m., you go down the valley a few hundred 
yards to the cascade at Dogashima, where you cross the 
stream and ascend Myoj5-ga-take to its summit, about two 
thousand feet above Dogashima. The day we made this tour 
the clouds came down to within about a thousand feet of us, 
cutting off the top of Kamiyama, the monarch of the Hakone 
district, and the upper two-thirds of Fuji, but we had a clear 
view of the Sakawa-gawa, down to Odawara near its mouth, 
and down Sagami Bay to the smoking volcano on Vries 
Island. We descended the west flank of My5jo to the 



246 NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

shoulder which joins it to My5jin-ga-take, and ascended the 
latter to the top. The summit is covered with a bamboo 
thicket, through which a pathway had some months before 
our visit been cut to the very highest point by Professor 
Chamberlain, who gives the height in "Murray's " as 3880 feet 
above the sea. Here we had lunch, and took in the distant 
views, as well as the view of the surrounding mountains 
covered only with rank grass, and of the intervening valleys 
where the only trees are to be seen. There is a descent of 
about twenty-five hundred feet to the temple of Saijoji. 
D5ry6's shrine is a gem of elaborate wood-carving, and, with 
the other buildings, situated in a wood of fine old pines and 
cryptomerias, which extends a distance of over two miles 
down the mountain-side, forms the centre of a succession of 
pretty views. Saij5ji's annual festival is on the 28th of 
May. We took jinrikisha to Odawara, and the tram to Yu- 
moto, and while waiting at the latter place for our coolies to 
get ready to drag us up to the Fujiya, saw the little cascade 
called Tamadare-no-taki. 

The six-mile walk from Miyanoshita to Hakone, by way 
of Kojigoku and Ashinoyu, passes close by Benten-yama, 
which affords a fine view to the eastward, across bay and 
peninsula, as far as Kano-san in Kazusa Province. On the 
way down from Ashinoyu to Hakone are to be seen many 
old Buddhist carvings and statues, of which the most impor- 
tant is the large Jiz5 carved in relief in the living rock. 
The head is carved with a large halo, and the left hand con- 
taining the jewel is nearly perfect, while the right hand has 
lost the fingers which should hold the shakujo, the mendi- 
cant priest's staff with six metal rings whose clanging was 
intended to announce the priest's approach and warn insects 
from his path. The statue is attributed to Kobo Daishi. 
Two little lakes are passed on the way down, and there is a 
famous view from above the torii, on the old Tokaido Road, 
just before reaching Moto-Hakone. Neither the deserted 
temple of Gongen nor the view of the Summer Palace from 
the lake, nor Yoritomo's relics, including two large iron pots, 
one of which has been broken to pieces by old-curio hunters, 










M s 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 247 

offer very much of interest ; and it was not until we watched 
the sunset from the windows of the Tsujiya Inn, and afterward 
saw by the moonlight the reflection of Fuji in the lake, that 
we fully appreciated the attraction of Hakone. 

The sunset was particularly fine. The clouds, which had 
been hanging over the mountains during the afternoon, lifted 
so as to form an arch over the summit of Fuji, which was 
apparently entirely covered with snow. Framed in the dark 
semicircle of clouds which rested on the still darker moun- 
tains near at hand, the pearl-coloured cone appeared above 
the Pass, weird and ghostly, and extremely picturesque. 
There was sufficient moonlight that night to afford us a clear 
reflection of Fuji, which is seen upside-down on the still 
surface of the lake. Hakone is a summer resort only ; and 
as late as the last day of May, we found the thermometer 
standing at about 40° F. when we got up. There was a 
deluge of rain that looked as if it might continue for a week, 
so we gave up a projected tour over the Ten Province Pass, 
and left for Yokohama. Our first stage was in hago, with 
three bearers each. A Tcago is a sort of palanquin suspended 
on a stout bamboo pole, and for those who are accustomed to 
sit cross-legged it is fairly comfortable. But Europeans find 
that they can neither sit, lie, nor assume any other natural 
position in it ; and some find the motion in it has the addi- 
tional disadvantage of inducing nausea. The Hakone bearers 
are a muscular class, and ours brought us from the Tsuji-ya 
down the valley of the Sukumo-gawa to Yumoto in less than 
two and a half hours. Another three and a half hours, by 
tram and train, brought us to Yokohama. 

In July we came back to Kodzu by train, and as far as 
Odawara by tram-car, which got off the track no less than 
three times. From Odawara we went down, the coast to 
Atami by what is known as the " Pushman-Car Road." 
These cars are boxes measuring a little over five feet each 
way, designed to seat six passengers, and running on ex- 
tremely light rails. Three coolies push these up the hills, 
jumping up and clinging to the steps when going down hill. 
The road winds around the hills and cliffs along the sea- 



248 NAGOYA AND HAKONE 

shore, disclosing pretty views from time to time. From 
Odawara the road rises for about five miles, until Nebukawa 
is left behind, and then it is mostly down hill for the remain- 
ing thirteen and a half miles to the station at Atami. The 
way the band-box cars are allowed to rush around the sharp 
curves on the edge of the cliffs looks extremely dangerous ; 
but we were assured that there had never been an accident. 
As it took four hours to do the eighteen and a half miles, 
it is probable that we never reached ten miles an hour at 
any time, so that the pace seemed faster than it really was. 
We were able before dinner to visit Uomi, as well as the 
geyser which emits very hot water and steam, and the big 
camphor-trees of Kinomiya. 

The camphor of commerce may be obtained by distillation 
from the leaves alone, or by cutting down the tree and treat- 
ing the chips to the same process. In Japan the latter 
method is employed, so that it is only in temple grounds that 
old camphor-trees are now to be found. 

Uomi overlooks the sea from the top of the high cliffs on 
the southern point of the crescent of hills which, terraced 
down to the very beach, surround Atami. There is a narrow, 
broken road up to where the watchers signal to the fishing- 
fleet below, which direction the fish are going. Recent in- 
vestigations from a balloon have demonstrated that at a 
height of 600 to 900 feet above the water submerged objects, 
within a radius of 600 feet, can be seen to the depth of 90 to 
120 feet. This fact had long since been recognised by the 
sharp-eyed Japanese, and put to practical use. 

It took us twelve hours to go from the Higuchi Hotel at 
Atami over the mountains to Daiba and by train to Yoko- 
hama. In spite of the threatening weather we had designs 
on the Ten Province Pass from the Atami side, a steep climb 
of about three miles ; but by the time we reached the fork 
of the road, halfway to Karuizawa, the rain was coming down 
in torrents, and the Pass was so wrapped in mist that instead 
of seeing ten provinces from it we should have been lucky to 
have seen more than the one under our feet. An hour and 
a half's tramp in the mud brought us to a tea-house, and we 



NAGOYA AND HAKONE 249 

reached tlie highest point on the road an hour later. There 
were good views of Uomi and Segami Bay on the way up ; 
and of Ashitaka-yama and Fuji on the way down. 

There are practically no trees on the mountains over which 
we had come, and nothing but rank grass covers most of 
them. From the summit down to the Daiba station on the 
Dzus5 Railway took us two and a half hours ; and we were 
told that jinrikishas with three coolies, two to pull and one 
to push going up, come through from Atami in the same 
time as we did, namely, five hours. The station master at 
Daiba, who spoke German very well, entertained us until 
the train left for Mishima station on the Tokaidd Railway, 
and sold us first-class tickets for a train which only ran 
second-class carriages. While waiting for the " up " train 
at Mishima we strolled over to see the cascade formerly 
known as Aitsubo-no-take, but now called Fuji-mi-no-take, 
a pretty waterfall about twenty feet high. 



CHAPTER XXII 

NORTHERN JAPAN 

By Sea to Hakodate. The Japanese NaAry^. Hakodate. The Island 
of Hokkaido. The Hairy Ainos. "Good Wine needs no Bush." 
Aomori. The Northern Railway. Matsushima. Bandai-san. 
The Eruption of 1888. Flowers and Birds. From Inawashiro to 
Nikko. 

After a few days' sightseeing in T5kyo and Yokohama, we 
started for the north, first going to Hakodate by the Matsu- 
yama Maru, a steamer of nearly three thousand gross and 
two thousand net tons. Although yusen seems to be the 
Japanese equivalent for " mail steamship," maru is post-fixed 
to the names of all merchant steamers, and han to the names 
of men-of-war. 

There were no other passengers at the European first-class 
table, and only a Japanese lady and her two boys at the 
Japanese table ; but we had the society at meals of the three 
ship's officers, who belonged to the Imperial Naval Reserve. 
The captain had been engaged during the Chinese war in 
navigating a ship laden with water for the use of the Japa- 
nese troops in Korea. The food provided at the European 
table was very good and plentiful. Breakfast when you 
like, lunch at 12.30, tea at 3, and dinner at 6 p.m. 

We left Yokohama about ten in the morning of a fine, 
bright June day, and had a four hours' steam down Tokyo 
Bay to the Nogima-zaki light. By the time we had finished 
dinner the white light of Inuboye-zaki was flashing on our 
port bow, and we were on our course, nearly due north, for 
Oginohama, where we arrived the following forenoon. Ogin- 
ohama, two hundred and eighty miles by sea from Yokohama, 
is uninteresting in itself, but it has a pretty harbour, and it 

250 



NORTHERN JAPAN 251 

is the port for Matsusliinia and tlie Sacred Island of Kin- 
kwa-san, or, as it is marked on some charts, Kinkasan. We 
had a good view of the latter from the sea, and narrowly 
missed running down a fishing boat off the Kinkasan Light. 
After we passed this, we headed north again for a tAvo-hun- 
dred-and-seventy-raile run to Hakodate ; and we had rain for 
the rest of the day and all night. We knew we were running 
some risk of delay in landing, for the foggy season in these 
waters is from the beginning of June to the middle of July ; 
and we were not surprised to hear the fog-horn during the 
evening. As soon as the fog came on, our course was altered 
several points to the eastward, and so was held when the fog 
was blown away a few hours later by a strong gale from the 
southeast, which veered to the east by eight o'clock the next 
morning. After breakfast, we had a fire between decks for- 
ward, which was fortunately put out without much damage. 
It was caused by a match thrown down near a case marked 
tamago (eggs), which instantly caught fire. There were 
several other similarly marked cases in the same consign- 
ment, and they were all found to contain alcohol instead of 
eggs. 

We were due at Hakodate at 10 a.m., but up to 2 p.m. we 
were in a thick fog, with every man on the look-out for Shiri- 
ya-zaki, the cape at the south of the entrance to Tsugaru 
Straits, which separate the Main Island from Hokkaido. 
We were thought to be just north of this cape, and the look- 
out was all to port ; and it so chanced that we made the 
land on that side shortly after two o'clock, when we found 
ourselves almost ashore under the cliffs to the north of Ye- 
san-misaki, the point at the north entrance of the Straits, nearly 
thirty-two miles out of our reckoning. It took us an hour 
to circle round to starboard, so that Yesan-mi-saki light was 
abeam, and two hours and a quarter more to reach Hakodate 
Head, called by some enthusiasts the Japanese Gibraltar. 
Half an hour later, at 5.45 p.m., we cast anchor, nearly eight 
hours overdue. 

The ship's officers were full of enthusiasm over the then 
latest addition to the Japanese Navy, the Hatsuse, and con- 



252 NORTHERN JAPAN 

sidered it to be of immense importance to the country that it 
possessed in this vessel " the biggest and most powerful war- 
ship in the Pacific." 

Since then, the battleship MiJcasa, with a displacement of 
15,200 tons, has been completed and put in commission, and 
in her Japan now has the largest battleship in the world. A 
speed of 18.6 knots was attained on her deep-sea of&cial 
trials, and a mean indicated horse-power of 16,400 was de- 
veloped. The Mikasa's armament includes "four 12-in. guns 
and fourteen 6-in. guns, with twenty 12-prs., eight 3-prs., 
four 2|^-prs., and four submerged torpedo-tubes." 

The Japanese Navy has been developed upon the most 
advanced modern lines ; and it is now almost as strong as 
that of Italy. In new first-class battleships, and in first- and 
second-class cruisers, the Japanese Navy is already superior, 
and it is rapidly overtaking the Italian Navy in the strength 
of its torpedo craft and auxiliary fleet. 

Out of a total revenue of ,£27,000,000, Japan spends over 
£4,000,000 on its sea-going force, while Italy, with a revenue 
of nearly £70,000,000, is spending less than £5,000,000 per 
annum. The personnel of the Japanese Navy, including the 
navy reserve, is not far from 20,000 men, and the sailors are 
recruited by volunteers and by conscription. Judging from 
what I saw in Japan, discipline is not very severe in the 
navy ; and the junior officers must have their work cut out 
in managing the crews. The supply of officers has not kept 
pace with the increase in war-ships and merchant vessels ; 
and this is one of the reasons why many of the latter have 
been obliged to procure the services of foreign captains and 
engineers. 

The superior officers of the navy may be skilled in naval 
strategy, tactics, and seamanship ; but it is open to doubt if 
absolute reliance can be placed upon the navigating officers. 
The Japanese as a race are so deficient in arithmetic that it 
must be a matter of the greatest difficulty to procure men of 
sufficient accuracy and ability to master the calculation neces- 
sary for successful navigation. The miscalculation of nearly 
32 miles in the dead reckoning of our course of 227 miles to 



NORTHERN JAPAN 253 

Hakodate was about 14 per cent. A similar percentage of 
error in laying the course of a ship from New York to South- 
ampton would land on the north coast of Spain instead of the 
south coast of England. 

The Kito Inn at Hakodate was full ; but we got a good 
eight-mat room facing the main street in the new Kakudai 
Inn. Carrion crows fluttered about the streets ; and tram- 
cars pulled by two horses ran before our windows, for the 
inns and better houses in Hakodate possess genuine windows 
with glass panes ; and are so constructed to better withstand 
the Hokkaido winters which supply a heavy fall of snow and 
plenty of severe weather even when there is not much ice. 
The roofs of the houses are covered as a rule with large stones 
in the same way as those in many parts of Switzerland. In 
place of the straw rain-coat the people wear a red blanket tied 
with a rope. In winter bearskin coats are common ; and we 
saw one worn with apparent comfort as late as 10th June. 
On this date some late cherry-blossoms were still on the trees 
near Hakodate, and the wistaria was in full blossom. Rice 
was being planted out even later in the month. 

There are a few hasJia to be found ; but the pack-horse is 
the almost universal means of transportation, during the mild 
weather in Hokkaido, away from the railway. The pack- 
animals are mostly mares, many of them followed by their 
foals ; and above the pack, well over the withers, is placed 
the saddle, in shape like a saw-horse. Sitting astride this, 
with the cross pieces in front and behind, the rider's heels 
just about touch the horse's mane. In winter sledges are 
commonly used. The roads are wretched, and, even in the 
suburbs of Hokodate, dangerous to travel over after dark, on 
account of deep ruts and deeper holes. 

It took five hours to do the seventeen miles to Junsai-mura 
in a hasha with a pair of horses (for which we paid seven 
yen), and it was hard work to keep from falling off the narrow 
seat. We took our lunch-basket out to Maru-san, a comfort- 
able house on the border of the lake, and after exploring the 
shores of Juns'ai and Onuma for a couple of hours, started 
back to Hakodate. We had good views of the Head, lighted 



254 NORTHERN JAPAN 

up by the setting sun, and of the town and harbour. On the 
Peak, as the top of Hakodate Head is called, a great fort is 
being built, and, as a consequence, the public are no longer 
permitted to ascend to the summit, from where an extended 
view of the coasts of Tsugaru Straits could be had. Our 
enjoyment of the scene was abruptly terminated by the haslia 
tipping up and dejDositing us in the twelve inches of mud 
with which the road was covered. We certainly fell soft, 
and sustained not even a bruise ; but it required some scrap- 
ing with a knife to even see our clothes. We found that the 
axle had broken close to the hub of the off hind-wheel ; and 
that we were five miles away from the terminus of the tram- 
line into Hakodate. This meant two hours' walk, up to the 
ankles in mud, and another hour in the tram to the inn. 

Hokkaid5 (or Yezo), upon which Hakodate is situated, is 
chiefly interesting on account of the great virgin forest which 
extends over a large part of the island ; and of the remnant 
of the aborigines of Japan, the Hairy Ainos, still to be found 
there. At the end of 1899 there were about seventeen thou- 
sand Ainos in Hokkaido, and this number does not seem to be 
decreasing. They are not very remarkably hairy, and in fact 
are not unlike the shaggy Russian moujik in appearance ; but 
the women usually tattoo the lips in such a manner as to 
appear to be endowed with exceptionally heavy mustaches. 
Hokkaido has a very small foreign trade ; but it sends some- 
thing like six million yen worth of fish-manure to fertilise 
and scent the coasts of Shikoku and other parts of Japan. 

It is curious that in this remote part of Japan it is the 
custom for the taverns or shops where sake is sold to use as 
a sign of their trade a ball of cryptomeria branches (^saka- 
hayashi), in the identical way that the bush of evergreens 
was used by the Roman wine-sellers. This custom survives 
to-day in England in the bunch of ivy, and in some parts of 
the western United States in the green bough or truss of hay, 
similarly displayed by publicans; while the Latin proverb 
based on it is translated into the English " Good wine needs 
no bush." 

We crossed over from Hakodate to Aomori in the Satsuma 



NORTHERN JAPAN 255 

Maru, a well-appointed Clj^^cle-built steamer, of something 
under two thousand tons' displacement, which formerly ran 
between Shanghai and Nagasaki. The boatmen in Aomori 
Bay scull with oars having a cross-piece at the top of the 
handle, and with row-locks made of a ring of rope. The main 
street of Aomori consists of a row of one-storeyed houses 
whose roofs, covered with stones, extend over the footway 
so as to form an arcade. Here we bought some of the mot- 
tled Tsugaru lacquer. Snow was still lying on the slopes of 
Iwakiyama to the west, and of Hakkotayama to the south of 
Aomori; and the railway skirting Aomori Bay runs from 
time to time under a series of snow-sheds. There are sud- 
den and heavy falls of snow in this part of Japan, and it some- 
times happens that after a big storm the snow will lie twenty 
feet deep in places. It was in such a snowstorm that nearly 
two hundred Japanese soldiers were overwhelmed, and lost 
their lives, in the early part of 1902, during a march of about 
thirty-two miles across the mountains southeast of Aomori. 

The journey by rail from Aomori to Matsushima is not 
very interesting. The railway follows the coast at first at 
the foot of a range of hills fringed with stunted trees. Be- 
tween San-no-he and Fukuoka the line ascends the pretty 
valley of the Mabechi-gawa, with the peak of Nagui-dake 
showing up boldly to the east. Continuing up the same 
valley the ridge of Sue-no-matsu-yama is seen to the east of 
the line before the long tunnel terminating near the station 
of Ichi-no-he. On the foothills near Nakayama is grown 
the lacquer-tree (urushi no hi) which rises to the height of 
about fifty feet, whose sap drawn in April and October fur- 
nishes the lacquer varnish (uruslii). At Namakunai we en- 
ter the valley of the Kitakami-gawa, which the line follows 
south for over one hundred miles. To Morioka, where there 
are apple and quince orchards, the country is more interest- 
ing, and there are a succession of mountain and moorland 
scenes. 

There is nothing noteworthy to be seen between Morioka 
and Matsushima station, which is about two arxd a half miles 
from the coast. Instead of going direct to the village, we first 



256 NOKTHERI^ JAPAN 

visited Tomiyama, from which eminence there is to be had a 
panoramic view of the pine islands, which give Matsushima 
its name, and of the surroundmg coast. Matsnshima is a 
land-locked bay, at the head of the gnlf near whose mouth 
lies the harbour of Oginohama, containing a great number 
of islands and islets covered with thick undergrowth and 
crowned with scattered pine- and iir-trees. Of Japan's 
"Three Great Views " (^sankei), it is the most characteristic, 
in the sense of being peculiar to the country. In the sense 
of being in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of Japanese 
taste LQ scenery, Ama-no-Hashidate is perhaps more charac- 
teristic. The islands have had their steep banks water-worn 
into fantastic shapes, and the view over them out to sea has 
a certain beauty. While the whole scene is less disappoint- 
ing than Ama-no-Hashidate or Miyajima, it fails to impress 
one as exceptionally beautiful, or even superlatively pretty. 
Its details will not stand critical analysis, and it requires a 
Japanese education to regard it with any enthusiasm. From 
Tomiyama we went on to Matsushima village, where we were 
offered souvenirs of the place in the shape of walking-sticks, 
made of a rare species of bamboo that has no hollows be- 
tween the joints, for which we were asked four to five yen. 
At Zuiganji v/e saw the stone figures of Kwannon, the carved- 
wood statue of Data Masamune in armour, and a good bronze 
image of Jizo. 

Tomiyama lies near one of the terminal points of the 
horseshoe curve of the haj, Matsushima lies near the centre, 
and from the latter place we went by boat to Shiogama at 
the other terminal point of the curve. The row across the 
bay is pretty. The little islands appear still more fantastic 
when a nearer view of their precipitous sides shows how 
curiously the friable sandstone has been worn by wave and 
weather ; and you can even trace some of the fanciful re- 
semblances that have given distinctive names to each of 
them. There is a good view from Shiogama's temple, which 
is approached by a steep flight of steps, and which possesses 
a sun-dial, bearing Roman figures and the date 1783, as 
well as an iron lantern said to be over eight hundred years 




X aS 



NORTHEEN JAPAN 257 

old. The temple grounds also give protection to a num- 
ber of tea-houses whose reputableness would not bear close 
investigation. 

We left the Ota-ya at Shiogama to go to the Hirano-ya at 
Inawashiro, through a better-wooded district, more plenti- 
fully supplied with horses than usual, by way of Sendai and 
Koriyama. There was a railway under construction from 
the latter place, and the rails were already laid to Inawashiro ; 
but trains were only running to Yamagata, situated near 
pretty woods on Lake Inawashiro. Between Atami and 
Yamagata there is a cascade near the railway formed by the 
waters of the irrigation canal. 

It is about ten miles, over a rough road around the flat 
northeast shore of the lake, from Yamagata to the smelly 
town of Inawashiro, which is the most convenient point 
from which to make the ascent to the crater of Bandai-san. 

From the Hirano-ya to the top of the ridge above the Ya- 
mano-ha Onsen (" mountain-top hot-spring ") took us three 
and a quarter hours, and the return journey two and a quarter 
hours ; so that with the liberal allowance of one and a half 
hours at the top, good walkers can easily do the crater in 
seven hours from Inawashiro. " Murray's " gives the distance 
as seven and a quarter miles each way, of which the first two 
and a half miles over the flat, but rough, Wakamatsu road 
can be done in jinrikisha in forty-five minutes. A walk of 
another forty-five minutes by a path over a level moor 
brings you to the first hill, from the top of which there is a 
good view of Lake Inawashiro, a nearly oval body of water 
about eight miles in diameter by twelve miles long, sur- 
rounded by round-topped, wooded hills. Bandai-san lies on 
the north shore of the lake, and we begin by ascending its 
south flank. Then the path winds around the west flank to 
the crater, which lies below the summit of the peaks, and 
opens toward the north. Wakamatsu and the valley of the 
Ogawa are seen to the west from the first hill, and the view 
broadens during the half-hour's easy ascent to a group of 
trees and three torii surrounding a spring. 

The Aizu clan, dwelling around Wakamatsu and spread 



258 NOETHERN JAPAN 

through Iwashiro Province and part of Shimotsuke, are even 
more conservative than the clan of Satsuma. The Gregorian 
calendar was adopted in Japan in 1873 ; but the Aizu coun- 
try-people stick to the old style of lunar months, and in 
other matters, such as toleration of foreigners, they have not 
advanced as quickly as other sections of the Empire. In 
place of the kimono, the blue cotton overalls or trousers 
locally known as tatsuke or tachiki are generally worn, and 
the same costume is common in the country along the Naka- 
sendo. 

From the spring the view to the west extends to the prov- 
ince of Echigo, which produces most of the petroleum found 
in Japan, and now supplies about a sixth of the total con- 
sumption of the country. An hour's stiffer climb brings 
you to the hut in the crater, and another fifteen minutes' 
scramble, to the edge at its northeastern side. The last 
hour's walk is up a wooded path, and it is only on emerging 
from this, near the top, that you suddenly get the view to 
the north and west. This is most impressive and awe- 
inspiring. Advancing to the top of the ridge, which is all 
that is left of the mountain-peak known as Ko-Bandai, or 
Sho-Bandai, you look down over a wilderness of rocks, and 
a scene of destruction and desolation. 

Previous to the cataclysm of July, 1888, there had been no 
tradition of Bandai-san's activity, and the valley, spreading 
far below to the north and. south, through which ran the 
Nagase-gawa between wooded hills, contained thriving vil- 
lages and a considerable population. In less than an hour 
these villages were entirely or partially buried in volcanic 
ashes or under the avalanche of earth and rocks which over- 
whelmed the valley when the side of the mountain was blown 
down and covered the country to the north and west. Nearly 
600 people were killed ; an area of almost 30 square miles 
overwhelmed; and another 40 square miles covered with 
ashes. The mass which was projected into the valley blocked 
up the river, converting it into a lake which is said to be 
increasing in size. The hills to the north and west of the 
valley are still covered with the bare skeletons of trees killed 



NORTHERN JAPAN 259 

by the eruption, and the trees on Bandai-san in the immedi- 
ate yicinity of the crater suffered the same fate. To the 
north of the lake thus formed lies Azuma-yama which has 
since 1890 become an active volcano, emitting smoke from 
time to time. The guide informed us that an old man still 
living was one of those in the Yamano-ha Onsen hut at the 
time of the eruption, when the eastern half of the building 
with its inmates was destroyed, leaving those in the other 
half uninjured. 

This guide, in his tattered coolie uniform, was, by the way, 
the only Japanese who ever offered to exchange cards with 
us ; and this he did with a courtesy that would have done 
credit to a samurai of the old school. There was a woman 
bathing in the hot water of the spring, under the shelter of 
the hut, and others were preparing to enjoy the benefits sup- 
posed to be derived from it. Above the hut, which is situ- 
ated on the brink of the crater, rise three peaks, which 
together form Bandai-san. The highest of these reaches an 
altitude of about 6000 feet above the sea, or 4200 feet above 
Lake Inawashiro, while the crater is 600 to 700 feet lower. 
We saw more wild flowers on the slopes of Bandai-san than 
anywhere else in Japan, the iris then in bloom being most 
conspicuous ; and we saw an unusual number of birds, and 
heard for the first time in Japan the note of the cuckoo 
(hototogisu) . 

We retraced our route from Inawashiro to Koriyama, and 
went by train to Shirakawa, from where a railway was about 
to be opened to Wakamatsu. From Shirakawa there are 
views of Nasuno-san to the west and north, and the line 
descends to Utsunomiya, the junction for Nikko, and 66 
miles from Tokyo, — a distance which it takes the fastest 
train 4|- hours to cover. 

From Utsunomiya to the terminus at the village of Hashi- 
ichi, one and a half miles below the Kanaya Hotel at Nikko, 
is twenty -five miles by the railway, which closely follows the 
Reiheishi Kaido. Both this and the finer Nikko Kaido are 
roads lined with ancient avenues of cryptomerias, which cut 
off any extended views from the train. Shortly after leaving 



260 NORTHEEN JAPAN 

TJtsunomiya, the Nikko mountains can be seen to the right, 
and about halfway a break in the trees affords a nearer 
Tiew. The continuity of the splendid avenue of trees is 
destroyed in many places by the railway, and by clearings 
in it made for the erection and convenience of dilapidated 
roadside houses. 



It 



D" " 

B ?! 
P Oi 




CHAPTER XXIII 

IjnXKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

Nikko. Art Treasures. The Gate of the Two Kings. The Main 
Temple. The Mausolea. Temples and Cascades. The Road to 
Chtizenji and Yuraoto. The Valley of the Watarasegawa. An 
Exhilarating Walk. Silkworms and Silk. Ikao. The Railway to 
Karuizawa. The Volcano of Asama. 

NiKKO, where the first Tokugawa Sh5gun leyasu was 
buried in 1617, and his grandson lemitsu the third shogun, 
who died in 1651, was afterward interred, is the Mecca of 
European tourists in Japan, and can probably boast of more 
natural beauties than any other locality in the country. In 
addition to its natural advantages, Nikko is claimed by the 
enthusiasts as " a glory of art," and the mausolea " the most 
perfect assemblage of shrines in the whole land." 

We began our sight-seeing from the bridges spanning the 
Daiya-gawa. A few yards higher up the stream than the 
Mi Hashi, the one ordinarily used, is the bridge reserved for 
the Emperor. It is built of timber covered with red lacquer, 
and supported on round monoliths of great size, and spans 
the 84 feet between the banks in a single flattened arch. An 
hour's walk from the bridge brought us to Kirifuri-no-taki ; 
and these cascades are advantageously seen from a tea-house 
near a little hill, affording a splendid view in every direction 
except the north. We looked at the well-kept little temple 
of Ryiigaiji, on the way back to the bridge, and then walked 
up the valley to Gamman-ga-fuchi, where the Daiya-gawa, 
hemmed in between gigantic boulders, dashes over its rocky 
bed. We succeeded in counting 115 images in the row lin- 
ing the right bank of the stream ; a number in excess of the 
original set placed in position there ! 

261 



262 NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

The third week in June, when we visited Nikk5, was 
exceptionally fine ; and we had three clear days in succession, 
without a drop of rain. We selected a bright morning for 
our visit to the famous temples and tombs lying concealed 
in the grove of stately cryptomerias on the hillside, just 
across the valley from our hotel. Following the order given 
in " Murray's," we first visited the Hall of the Three Buddhas 
(Sambutsu-do), where we admired the picture on silk of Dain- 
ichi Nyorai, and the Thirty-six Buddhas. 

There are preserved in the treasury numerous Buddhist 
antiquities, works of art, and ancient documents, sonnets, 
and specimens of handwriting. Ancient temple drums, 
harps, flutes, and gongs (kei) are exhibited ; together with 
swords, masks, ink-stones, reliquaries, carved red-lacquer, 
and silver incense-boxes. The horn of a unicorn (Jcirin) is 
also shown, and Sh5d5 Shonin's axe, stick, and knife, to- 
gether with an image of Yakushi Nyorai, "the Healing 
Buddha," carved by this old priest who died nearly eleven 
hundred years ago. 

The works of art are numerous and important and in- 
clude : sixteen pictures of the disciples of Buddha by the 
great fourteenth-century artist, Cho Densu ; four pictures by 
Kano Tanyii, who flourished in the seventeenth century; a 
portrait of K5b5 Daishi, by himself ; a portrait of Basho, by 
Ogawa Ritsu5 ; and pictures, by less famous artists, of the 
death of Buddha ; of the female saint Kokuz5 Bosatsu ; of 
Fudo-myo-5 and of Dainichi Nyorai, who are enough alike 
to have been twins ; of Aizen-myo-6 with three eyes and six 
hands, two holding a bow and an arrow, which entitle him to be 
called the Japanese god of love ; of the Eight Deities ; of the 
Five Hundred Disciples ; of ten scenes at the Last Judgment ; 
and of a fierce old god with the euphoneous name of Gun- 
zyariyasha-my5-o. Some pictures on golden screens and 
some fine old lacquer furniture and utensils were also to be 
seen ; and afterward we went to inspect the landscape gar- 
den, the row of coloured images, and the curious old black 
copper Sorint5 or Buddhist pillar, decorated with the con- 
tinually recurring Tokugawa crest. 






O > 

3 ? 




NIKKC), IKAO, and ASAMA-YAMA 263 

Then we ascend to the huge granite torii, and pass a five- 
storeyed pagoda and some old bronze flower vases, on the way 
to the Gate of the Two Kings (ni-o-mon) or front gate 
(omote-moti)^ through which we pass into a courtyard. We 
see that Hidari Jingoro has given the hind legs of his carved 
elephants hocks instead of knees; and leyasu's tree is pointed 
out to us. There is also a carving of three monkeys holding 
their " hands " respectively over the ej^es, ears, and mouth 
to signify, "I see no — I hear no — I speak no — evil." A 
fine bronze torii ; a water-trough cut out of a block of gran- 
ite ; and an artistically decorated building, containing a com- 
plete set of the Buddhist sacred books (kyomori) are to be 
seen in this court, and passing up a flight of steps to the 
next court we see the stone lions presented by lemitsu ; a 
number of massive seventeenth-century bronze objects, some 
of which are of European origin ; and the temple dedicated 
to leyasu's patron saint, Yakushi. The interior of this tem- 
ple, which has a ceiling painted with an enormous dragon 
by Kano Yasunobu, exhibits beautiful decorations in gold 
and in colours, and is the most artistic and tasteful in 
Nikk5. Another flight of steps leads to the finely-carved 
gate Qjomei-mon), which we pass through to reach the 
building containing the massive sacred palanquin (miJcoshi), 
and relics connected with leyasu. 

The Chinese gate (kara-mori)^ whose pillars are of inlaid 
Chinese woods, is the last of the series, and leads to the main 
temple. The oratory of this is decorated with birds and 
flowers in relief, and contains handsome, large, gold-lacquer 
boxes and fine embroideries, while the anteroom to the left 
has some well-executed eagles. Passing at the back of the 
oratory down three steps, we advance to the chapel, whose 
six gilt doors bar further progress ; but we are permitted to 
peep through a half-opened one into the dimly-lighted and 
apparently empty shrine. We retrace our steps, and turn- 
ing to the left, after passing the Chinese gate, go through 
the Gate of the Cat (neko-no-mori), over which is the sleep- 
ing cat (nemuri-neJco') of Hidari Jingoro carved in wood and 
painted. We then have an opportunity of resting our eyes 



264 NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

under the grand old trees, while we mount the long flights 
of stone steps leading to leyasu's grave. The tomb itself 
stands on a platform surrounded by a stone balustrade, with 
a massive bronze gate approached by a short flight of steps. 
The gate is closed, and before it are a pair of bronze lions. 
Through the balustrade you can see the light-coloured 
bronze tomb, and on a stone slab before it stands a huge 
bronze stork holding a brass candle in its beak, a great, 
oblong, bronze incense-burner, and a brass lotus-flower with 
leaves. 

We return down the hill, and, on the way to lemitsu's 
tomb, we inspect the interesting thirteenth-century bronze 
lantern in the grounds of Futa-ara no Jinja, the heavy stone 
sotoba over the grave of the Abbot Tenkai Daisojo, and the 
modest tombs of the thirteen prince-abbots of Nikko. The 
mausoleum of lemitsu is inferior to that of his grandfather 
leyasu, in decorations and offerings. It is less shut in by 
the trees ; and the tomb, which is of darker bronze, and has 
gates before it embellished with brass characters, but is other- 
wise of the same general appearance as that of leyasu, closely 
adjoins the temple, which is approached through four gate- 
ways, and another gate (the koka-mon') must be passed to 
reach the tomb itself. 

There is a severe simplicity and massive impressiveness 
about leyasu's tomb and its ornaments, all in harmony with 
its isolated position amidst the magnificent trees far up on 
the hillside. There it is a thing apart from the gaudy 
temples, with their lavish prodigality of ornamentation and 
embellishment, which startle the eye and clash with the 
natural beauty of their environment. As an old beldame 
whose artistic "make-up," rich costume, and glittering 
jewels may be in keeping with an opera-box and out of 
place in a rustic flower-garden, so the Nikko temples, which 
contain much that is effective, strike a jarring note in their 
beautiful surroundings. The Shiba temples, in T5ky5, enjoy 
the advantage of contrast with the dingy city close at hand, 
and therefore create a more favourable impression. 

After luncheon we went to the beautiful gorge and 



NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 265 

waterfall of Urami-ga-taki, going behind the fall and up 
to where there is a charming view of the cascade and the 
ravine. Then we did the Hongii Temple, the red San-no- 
miya shrine, the red-lacquered Kaisan-do, Tenjin's shrine, 
the Shira-ito cascade, the temple of Takino-o, the three 
enclosed cryptomerias called San-hon Sugi, and the GjSja-do, 
decorated with offerings of iron sandals by pilgrims anxious 
to develop their pedestrian powers. All of these are only 
worth visiting for the sake of the walk in the woods under 
the great trees, one of which measures twenty-two feet in 
circumference. Behind the Kanaya Hotel is a hill, called 
Daikoku, from which there are extended views over the 
valley. 

Leaving Nikko after breakfast, in jinrikishas with two 
coolies, we had lunch at Chuzenji, and went to Yumoto and 
back in time for dinner. The road which ascends the Daiya- 
gawa Valley was badly damaged by floods in 1897. A tram- 
line from the copper mines at Ashio occupies most of its 
width, and small lorries, each with four ingots of copper, 
are drawn down to the railway by oxen decorated with leafy 
branches to keep off the flies. An hour's ride brought us to 
Futamiya, where we branched off to the right, leaving the 
tram-line, which takes the left fork to Ashio. The scenery 
from here to the summit is wild and beautiful, and from the 
road can be seen the Hanuya and H5d5 cascades, and many 
charming woodland views. While the coolies stop to rest at 
the Naka tea-house, we went to look at Kegon-no-taki, a 
splendid waterfall nearly 250 feet in height, which falls into 
a wild and picturesque gorge. We soon reach Lake Chu- 
zenji, which is nearly 4400 feet above the sea, and a ride of 
an hour from Chiizenji village brings us to Ryiizu-ga-taki, a 
very pretty cascade flowing over huge, black rocks, and rush- 
ing through the deep crevasses between them. The road 
ascends to the top of the cascade, and crosses a table-land, 
dotted with fire-blackened stumps of trees, where there was 
a plague of flies that was most troublesome and annoying. 
At the far side of the plain a path through a wood leads to 
the curious Yu-no-taki, where the waters of Lake Yumoto 



266 NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

fall 200 feet over an inclined plane of black rock on the way 
to Ryuzu-ga-taki and Lake Chuzenji. 

We reached the village of Yumoto, which is at the upper 
end of the lake, and 5000 feet above the sea, in two and a 
half hours from Chuzenji, and it took two hours to return. 
The snow still clung in patches to the mountains above 
Yumoto, and only a few men and one woman had braved 
the chilly air to bathe in the open sheds built over the hot 
sulphur-springs. 

There is an old temple at Chiizenji, and there are numer- 
ous villas on the border of the lake where some of the 
Foreign Ministers to the Mikado's court live when the 
hot weather comes. We found ourselves very comfortable 
in the Lake Side Hotel, a new establishment run on Euro- 
pean lines. Lake Chiizenji is a deep lake, over seven miles 
long, and between two and three miles wide, surrounded by 
wooded hills except on the north side, where the steep slopes 
of Nantaizan rise over 3750 feet above its surface. We were 
rowed across the lake to Asega-hama early one morning, the 
passage taking a full hour on account of a strong head wind. 
We sculled close to Kozuke-shima, a little island containing 
a monument to (and according to the boatmen the grave of) 
Shod5 Shdnin, the eighth-century Buddhist saint who is said 
to have founded the Chiizenji Temple after his ascent of Nan- 
taizan. A climb of fifteen minutes from the landing-place 
brought us to the top of Asega-ta-t5ge, which commands a 
view of Nantaizan across Lake Chuzenji. 

In the opposite direction the road we followed led down 
one of the upper branches of the Watarase-gawa, which joins 
the main stream above Ashio. After two hours' walk down 
a rough mountain road, through a bare, rock-strewn valley, 
we crossed over to the right bank of the rivulet by a bridge 
below the village of Akakura, which contains copper-smelt- 
ing works, and is about ten miles from Chiizenji village, and 
not much over eight miles from the lake. The path, barely 
wide enough to permit pedestrians to pass comfortably, is in 
places cut out of the precipitous hillside a sheer hundred feet 
above the torrent. 



NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA'-YAMA 267 

Ashio, two and a half miles farther on, is the centre of 
the largest copper-mining district in Japan. Passing down 
the long, busy street, by the side of which the whole village 
is built, we cross over to the left bank, and cross back 
again to the right bank at Sori, seventeen miles from the 
lake, a distance which we had walked in exactly four hours, 
all down hill except the first fifteen minutes. We stopped 
an hour at Sori, having lunch, and waiting for the coolies 
carrying our luggage to catch up to us ; but they failed to 
appear, so we left word for them to follow, and sauntered 
down the road, taking two hours to do something under six 
miles to Godo. Here we had a ten-mat room in the smelly 
Tamaya Inn, and waited another two hours before our 
worn-out coolies came straggling in. 

The valley down to Ashio is desolate, and there is little 
improvement in the scenery as far as Godo ; but the weather 
was glorious, the temperature perfect for rapid walking, and 
the air delightful. The intoxicating breezes of the Riviera 
in spring, the keen, thin, summer air on the Gorner Grat, the 
crisp atmosphere of the Adirondacks in the " Indian summer" 
or autumn, and the intense, but dry, cold of a Canadian winter 
give rise to feelings of well-being and elation ; but none of 
these places ever gave me such a sensation of exhilaration 
as this morning walk down the valley of the Watarase-gawa. 
I felt like singing and dancing the whole way, and I am not 
quite sure I did not do both ; but sing I certainly did at the 
top of my lungs, to the great astonishment of the natives. 

Godo is on the border of the great silkworm district of 
central Japan, which produces about two-thirds of the cocoons 
grown in the country. There is an increasing air of pros- 
perity among the people, as the mulberry-tree becomes more 
plentiful beyond Godo, for this tree is the food of the silk- 
worm, whose products account for over one-third of the 
country's export trade. 

So soon as the silkworm eggs or " seed," preserved on 
sheets of cardboard, are hatched out, the grub is fed on 
chopped-up mulberry leaves, which are changed as often as 
three times a day. These leaves must be kept scrupulously 



268 JSTIKKO, IKAO, AND ASA]\IA-YAMA 

clean, and are usually placed in shallow wicker trays about 
six feet long and three feet wide, arranged one above the 
other on racks or stands. At the end of ten days the grub 
has grown into a caterpillar with eight legs, and after feeding 
another month on mulberry leaves, it begins to spin its cocoon, 
which takes about three days. Sericulture is so largely 
dependent upon the growth of the mulberry -tree, whose leaf 
changes materially in different localities and elevations, as to 
have caused fears that its further extension in Japan would 
soon come to an end. It is quite possible that the great 
production of cocoons in 1899, which far exceeded that of 
any previous year, would never have been exceeded but for 
the fact that a species of mulberry -tree has been found which 
will thrive above the altitude of two thousand feet, the limit 
at which the white mulberry is successfully cultivated. 

Even under the new conditions, the area planted with 
mulberry-trees in Japan in 1899 is only a trifle larger than 
the area so planted in 1898. The white-fruited mulberry, 
which grows wild only in China, where certain substitutes 
for it are used to a limited extent, is sometimes cultivated 
as a tree, but is more generally pollarded and grown as a 
shrub. This latter method gives an earlier crop of leaves, 
and permits a greater number of trunks to a given area. 
It takes the leaves of a full-grown mulberry-tree to feed 
two thousand silkworms, which number will produce about 
nine pounds' weight of cocoons. The market for the earlier 
cocoons had opened at the end of May ; and both May and 
June are such busy months in the silk districts, that it is 
difficult to employ coolies as porters or jinrikisha men, or to 
get the women away from their work to cook for you. When 
the time comes for the caterpillar to make its cocoon, twigs 
to which they can attach them are placed in the baskets. 
The cocoons are as a rule pearl-coloured ; but a small pro- 
portion of them are yellow, and there are also a few poor- 
looking black ones. Out of one hundred cocoons, eighty 
will be of good quality and colour, ten will be bad in colour, 
two will be pierced by the moth, and eight will as a rule be 
waste. 



NIKKO, IKAO, and ASAMA-YAMA 269 

The women put the cocoons in a pan of hot water, placed 
over a slow fire, and kept at about 115° to 125° F., to kill 
the worms and dissolve the gmn from the silk. With a small 
brush and a pair of chop-sticks they draw the delicate fila- 
ments of from six to ten cocoons into a strand around reels 
about a foot in diameter. It takes about thirteen ounces of 
cocoons to produce an ounce of silk, as the inside layers can- 
not be unwound ; but the waste is also an article of commerce. 

A Japanese woman who reels off six ounces of silk in a 
day is considered to have done well, even although her product 
is somewhat irregular in quality. In China, ten ounces is 
about the average ; and in France, sixteen ounces a day. 
The cocoons are sold for export as well as the product of the 
first filature ; but the later is generally re-reeled on a frame 
four to six feet in diameter, and sold for home and foreign 
consumption in hanks. Although the export of raw silk 
from Japan fluctuates with the crop of cocoons, the con- 
sumption by the Japanese shov/s continual growth, and the 
export of silk goods increases year by year. 

The silk goods exported in 1898 were over three times the 
value of those exported in 1893. Japan's exports of raw silk 
in 1898 was about equal in weight to the combined produc- 
tions of Europe and Western Asia, and slightly exceeded the 
exports of China and the East Indies together. In value the 
Chinese exports of raw and manufactured silk exceeds those 
of Japan ; but the latter has the advantage of a greater pro- 
duction of cocoons, and is rapidly reducing the excess value, 
while the disease prevailing among the silkworms in China 
is telling against that country. 

From Godo to the railway station at Omama is a walk of 
about twelve and one-half miles. The rough wagon-road 
runs high above the river, except when passing through the 
village of Hanawa, where there is an embankment to the 
river which the road follows. The scenery improves as we 
go down the Watarase-gawa, and becomes very fine at Mizu- 
numa, where we cross by a high bridge to the left bank. 
The road is here joined by the path which follows the left 
bank all the way from Sori. From Mizunuma the road is good 



270 NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

for about three miles, to a small temple, dedicated to the 
Horse-headed Kwannon, whose grounds are decorated with 
a great number of small torii roughly made with English bar 
iron. Across the valley are cliffs, with thick woods reaching 
down to the edge of the river. We crossed again to the 
right bank before reaching Omama, where we took the train 
to Maebashi, passing through a wooded country, with high 
mountains looming up in the distance to the west. Near 
Godo the peasants were still gathering the mulberry leaves 
to feed the silkworms. As we descended the valley we saw 
the trays being brought out, and the cocoons disentangled 
from the twigs. Farther down the women in the doorways 
were working the little filatures, and the men were filling 
the cocoons into big cylindrical baskets for transport. At 
Omama the bigger reels were in operation, and Maebashi 
was full of silk-buyers bargaining for the cocoons and hanks. 
At the latter place we chartered a private car on the tram- 
way to Shibukawa, and went up the hilly road from the 
latter village to the Maramatsu Hotel at Ikao by jinrikisha. 
Shibukawa consists of a long, ugly street which you traverse, 
then the road runs over moorlands and up steep hills scat- 
tered over with dwarf trees. 

Ikao lies on the flank of the mountains at an elevation of 
about 2500 feet, and it commands extensive views over the 
upper valleys of the Tone-gawa, Japan's biggest as well as 
longest river, about 170 miles from source to mouth. Nantai- 
zan and the whole Nikko range of mountains lie across the 
valley from Ikao, with Akagisan nearest at hand. If you 
are a good walker, and are fortunate enough to have a day 
without rain, you can see the best of Ikao's sights between 
breakfast and dinner. 

There is a good road up the Yusawa ravines and over the 
moors, which brought us, in three-quarters of an hour, to 
the Yaseone tea-house, where we were treated to an infusion 
of poached barley (mugiyu) drunk like tea (a Chinese recipe), 
for which it is a very fair substitute. An hour's easy walk, at 
the end of which there is a five minutes' ascent, takes you past 
Haruna Lake to the summit of Tenjin-toge, which is said to 



NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 271 

be one thousand feet above Ikao. A walk of twenty-five 
minutes down a steep patli into a lieavily- wooded and narrow 
valley brings you to the temple of Haruna, picturesquely 
placed under precipitous masses of rocks, one of which, bal- 
anced above the main building, looks as if it might fall at any 
moment and crush the temple to pieces. On the road down 
is an extremely curious column of rocks, piled up on one 
another like an irregular stack of boxes, called the Zigzag 
Rocks (tsu-zura-hva) . 

The Haruna temple gate has very good wood-carvings, of 
subjects from Chinese history, and the main building is also 
decorated with good carvings. We returned by the same 
road, passing on the way a conical hill with a herd of cattle, 
and branched off to the right after passing the Yaseone tea- 
house to the crest of the moor, which is separated by a deep 
ravine from the base of Futatsu-dake. The rough path then 
winds through a wood, and under torii, to the bottom of 
the ravine, and round the base of the mountain. About 
fifty feet before it is joined by the direct path from Ikao, 
there are, by the roadside, two blow-holes which emit strong 
currents of cold air. Reaching Mushi-yu, we found that the 
hot spring had ceased running in March, 1899 ; but there 
were underground Turkish baths, heated by hot air coming 
from holes in the ground. 

We went back to Ikao by a broken path over the moors, 
to the brink of the Yusawa ravine, down the side of which 
we had a dangerous scramble by a zigzag path obliterated in 
many places by the rain. This path joins the Yumoto road 
near the bridge ; and we finished our walk by going up to 
the hot spring whose waters are led into the houses of Ikao 
in bamboo pipes. 

From Ikao to Karuizawa takes eight hours, by jinrikisha, 
tram, and train. Between Isobe, which lies at an elevation 
of 1000 feet, and Karuizawa, a distance of fourteen miles, 
the railway crosses the Usui pass, which is over 4000 feet 
above the sea. For about five miles, where the gradient is 
one in fifteen, the Abt cog-wheel system is used. There are 
nearly three miles of tunnelling, and a viaduct 110 feet high 



272 NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 

over the Usui-gawa, among other engineering achievements, 
on this short bit of railway. The road from the station at 
Karuizawa is very bad, and we arrived in a pelting rain- 
storm, which we afterward heard continued for over a week. 
Karuizawa is at one end of that portion of the Nakasendd, or 
Central Mountain Road, between Tokyo and Kyoto, which 
is usually done by jinrikisha to Gifu, 156 miles by the road, 
where the railway is again available. But our object in com- 
ing to Karuizawa was to make the ascent of Asama-yama, 
the largest active volcano in Japan, whose summit rises 5000 
feet above the plain, to an elevation of 8280 feet. But at the 
end of the second day of rain we gave it up and left for 
Yokohama ; and the obliging host of the Mampei Hotel 
offered us as a parting gift a map and a printed description 
of the volcano. The latter is here reproduced verbatim. 

" The Volcano of Asama is the largest and most famous in 
Japan. With regard to its activity it is very variable. At 
times it remains almost quiescent and then withered warn- 
ing, it suits dense volume of smoke and clouds of hopes. 
Many VIOLENT eruptions of the Mountain are recorded, 
but the one which, in modern times has caused the most 
destruction, took place of on the 8th of July 113 years ago. 
According to trustworthy accounts numerous villages east- 
ward of the town of Komoro for a distance of ten miles, were 
buried under lava and ashes and numerous lives were lost. 
To the north of Asama in the province of Kotsuke, the 
destruction was still more terrible. Many rivers, such as the 
Asama, the Tone on were choked by the debris from the Crater 
and the dammed up waters flooded hundreds of villages, sweep- 
ing away innumerable houses, together with their inhabitants. 

" The accompanying map has been drawn up with great 
care from reliable surveys taken some four years ago. It 
gives the general outline of the Volcano and its Crater. The 
latter is about 600 feet in depth with a diameter of 4000 feet. 
At the bottom are numerous house from which smoke and 
steam is continuously emitted with a dull waring of rumbling 
noise, and in the early morning before Sunrise, the fire is 
plainly visible here and there at the bottom of the Crater. 




The Zigzag Kock neak Haruna TexMple, Ikao, Japan. 



NIKKO, IKAO, AND ASAMA-YAMA 273 

" The easiest, thence by for the longest ascent, is from the 
town of Komoro. From Karuisawa horses may be taken for 
seven or eight miles to the base of the mountains from this 
point the ascent occupies from three to four hours. Water 
as well as food should be taken as none of the former is to 
be obtained in the immediate vicinity of the mountain." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

The Great Buddha of Katnakura. Enoshima. To Ramakura by 
Jinrikisha. Earthquakes. An Excursion to Kanozan. The Caves 
of Taya. Holidays and Fireworks. Narita. Fine Carvings. 
T5kyo. Ueno Park. Shiba. Flowers and Gardens. 

The most popular excursion for Europeans to make from 
Yokohama is to the temples and Daibutsu of Kamakura, a 
journey of less than an hour by rail. The temple of Hachi- 
man, with its great «cAJ-tree, and the view from the hill be- 
hind ; the temple of Kwannon, with a similar view, and a 
fine old bronze figure of Dainichi Nyorai; Enndji, with its 
carved images, by Unkei, one being of Shozuka-no-Baba (the 
witch who steals the clothes of children in the other world) 
and the one of Emma-0 (the regent of the Buddhist hells, 
and a male in spite of the apparently feminine name), 
boldly carved and full of character ; Kench5ji, with its fine 
grove of trees and big image of Jizo ; and Shojoken, littered 
with minute paper flags that are fastened to splinters of 
wood and planted in small bundles all over the temple 
grounds, as well as the road leading to them, — are all inter- 
esting or amusing, but none of them worthy of being men- 
tioned in the same day as the Daibutsu. 

The great bronze statue of Buddha seated, in the manifes- 
tation known as Amida, is remarkable for its size, nearly 50 
feet high and 100 feet in circumference, as well as for the 
fact that it has withstood two great tidal waves which swept 
away the temple around and covering it. Cast about 650 
years ago, it has for over 400 years been exposed to wind and 
weather, to hand down to the present day one of the most 
wonderful examples of pure Indian art to be found anywhere 

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YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 275 

in the world. We made three visits to the Daibutsii, and 
each time carried away a deeper impression of the majesty, 
dignity, and power of this unique monument. 

Enoshinia may be visited from Kamakura by the road 
along the beach called the Shichi-ri-ga-hama, or direct from 
Yokohama by the Tokaido Railway to Fujisawa. There is 
a bridge from the mainland, as Enoshima is now an island at 
high tide, and the approach to it is spanned by a gigantic tin, 
or sheet iron, torii erected by a T5ky5 saA;e-dealer, and covered 
with advertisements extolling his wares ; a quaint combina- 
tion of " the spirit of love " and " the spirit of wine." Before 
Japan was inhabited by the Japanese, Enoshima must have 
been a peninsula beautiful to look at, charming to visit, and 
affording delightful views. To-day it is a mass of shops, 
tawdry shrines, tea-sheds, and other abominations, which 
have spoilt its natural beauties, and only left the mournful 
satisfactions that may be extracted from a study of holiday- 
making Japanese. Nevertheless, we climbed the steep road 
to the top, descended the cliff to the cave, said to be over 
350 feet deep and 30 feet high at the entrance ; and in pass- 
ing the shops were induced to buy some specimens of the 
curious glass-rope sponge and some little flat shells which 
move about if placed in a basin of vinegar. We had a good 
view of Fuji in the setting sun from the bridge. 

Toward the end of June we paid our last visit to the 
Kamakura Daibutsu, going all the way by jinrikisha, with 
two coolies, and back by rail. We left Yokohama by way 
of the Bluff, the Race Course, and Macpherson's Hill. Then 
through Negishi, with its little shrine, to Fudo on the top of 
a hill, to Isog5, where the irises in the flower-garden, of about 
two acres, established in 1897, were still in bloom, and 
through the tunnel to Mori and Seki. A short distance be- 
yond Seki we turned to the right up the Mine Hill and 
walked to the top. Nokendo, with its famous pine-tree, was 
our next halt. From the tea-house are views over T5ky5 
Bay on one side and the intervening country to Fuji-yama 
on the other, much finer than those from Macpherson's Hill, 
the Negishi Temple, or the Mine Hill. After seeing the 



276 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

" eight beautiful views " (hakhei) of Kanazawa, we took the 
old main road to Kamakura. The country all the way from 
Yokohama is a pretty one, weU- wooded and hilly. In the 
marshy places arum-lilies were in flower, and on the hill- 
sides the large, showy, wild hydrangeas (ajisai) were growing 
in masses like rhododendrons. In the Daibutsu enclosures 
irises were in bloom, and also the sweet-smelling jasmine. 

It is stated that the seismograph records an average of one 
earthquake for each day in the year, but during our fourteen 
weeks' stay in Japan we only felt one, which occurred about 
a quarter to seven one morning in Yokohama. The first 
shock woke up the guests in the Grand Hotel, and the second 
shock caused the building to creak and the beds to tremble, 
but no damage was done except to a few unstable ornaments. 

About thirty miles to the southeast of Yokohama, across 
T5ky5 Bay, the mountain of Kano-zan rises above the sur- 
rounding hills to an elevation of between twelve hundred and 
thirteen hundred feet. On a clear day it forms the most 
prominent feature of the background to the view from 
Treaty Point, yet, except by an occasional missionary, it is 
rarely visited by Europeans, and some of the oldest resi- 
dents of Yokohama have never been there. A tour of three 
days and two nights to the other side of the bay will take 
you well away from the beaten track, and is well worth 
making. 

Leaving Yokohama early in the morning, we went by train 
to Yokosuka, where the government dockyard is established, 
and where can be seen the grave of Will Adams, the Medway 
pilot, who brought a Dutch Fleet out three hundred years 
ago, and was the first Englishman to land in Japan. Then by 
jinrikisha to Uraga, famous for its mizu-ame, a sweet paste 
made from malted grain, and considered most toothsome and 
wholesome. At Uraga we took the steamer, leaving at 11.30 
A.M. for the coast on the other side of the channel. The first 
port is Kanaya, situated at the foot of a hill upon which are 
great quarries of soft stone. The blocks are brought down 
in small carts to the shore by women, and carried on to the 
boat on men's backs, a slow and laborious method of loading. 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 277 

Hota was the next landing-place, and then Katzuyama (or 
Kachiyama), passing an islet with a natural arch in the rock, 
and leaving behind a pretty view of the coast, with Noko- 
giriyama in the background. At the end of the second hour 
we had reached Tayooka ("very-busy-hill"), whose houses 
are surrounded with thick bamboo hedges ; and half an hour 
later touched at Funakata. At Nago a group of naked 
women were bathing on the beach, and also at H5j5, where 
we landed. We found an excellent fifteen-mat room at the 
Yoshino-an, where the service was very good and everything 
was spotlessly clean. Tateyama, with its view of Fuji-yama 
across Sagarni Bay, lies only a mile away, and two and a half 
miles west of Tateyama is one of the many famous pine-trees 
of Japan. 

The next morning we took the steamer, leaving at eight 
o'clock, back to Kanaya, where we landed at quarter to eleven ; 
and took jinrikishas along the coast road through several tun- 
nels to Tenjinyama, on the Minato-gawa, arriving at the Fuku- 
moto Inn at noon. From there the road up the valley and 
hills is very bad, being heavy sand with deep ruts all the way, 
so after the first hour we sent away the jinrikishas and 
walked to the Marushichi Inn at Kano-zan. There are fine 
views of Tokyo Bay ; but the hills themselves, near at hand, 
are not very pretty. 

The village of Kano-zan is built on the top of the moun- 
tain ; and the best views, which embrace magnificent vistas 
to the west and north, are from the back rooms of the inns 
and from the hill just below them. At the very summit of 
the mountain is a shrine approached by a flight of over two 
hundred steps ; but the trees obstruct the view, and it is 
only by following a short path to a clearing on one side of 
the peak that a view is had to the northeast over the jumble 
of hills and dales known as " The Ninety-nine Valleys." The 
sights of Kano-zan, including the neglected temple of Yaku- 
shi and the waterfall, can all be viewed in a couple of hours ; 
and you can spend the rest of the time until after the sun 
has set in the enjoyment of the splendid panorama spread 
out before you. We found many beautiful butterflies and 



278 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

moths on the slopes of Kano-zan, from tiny ones no bigger 
than flies to big ones as large as birds, and of a great variety 
of colour. 

We made an early start from Kano-zan, leaving at quarter 
past six, and walked down to Sanuki, through a succession 
of small, well-cultivated valleys, in an hour and a half. No 
other foreigners had been to the village for over six months, 
although it might be reached direct from Yokohama in four 
to five hours. We had a hazy morning at first ; but before 
we reached Sanuki the mist had disappeared, and Fuji 
showed its snow-capped cone through the clouds in the 
full glare of the morning sun. The young women in this 
province are rather better-looking than the peasantry of other 
parts of Japan ; but the old fishermen's wives, who do a large 
proportion of the heavy work ashore, keep up the general 
average of ugliness. 

From Sanuki to Futtsu, by way of Iwase, the road is very 
heavy sand, but we got through in exactly two hours, with a 
man pulling and a woman pushing each jinrikisha. While 
waiting for a fishing-boat to take us across the bay, we 
watched some primitive rope-making done entirely by hand 
without a wheel. Our boat was loaded with fish and vege- 
tables for the Yokohama market ; and starting with the tide 
and a twelve-knot breeze in our favour, we did the thirteen 
miles from point to point in two hours. Flying-fish were 
very plentiful in Toky5 Bay, and one which dropped into 
the boat had two pairs of equally developed fins. 

We employed a rainy afternoon in going by train to 
Ofuna, and then, by jinrikisha, over the very bad road to the 
caves of Taya. We found the caves, or rather tunnels and 
chambers excavated in the tufa, to be, contrary to their 
reputation, dry enough even in rainy weather. The pious 
zealot through whose efforts, during a period of forty years, 
the underground passages were extended and carved with 
Buddhist emblems and divinities, died in 1892, and the work 
was then discontinued, but we were told it would soon go on 
again. 

In the morning we had visited 0-san-no-Miya, the shrine 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 279 

to the self-sacrificing girl whose festival is celebrated here 
in September, and tlie Joshoji Temple, where mothers go to 
pray for their children's recovery from illness. In Ota, the 
same suburb of Yokohama, is the manufactory of the grey, 
glazed Makuzu-ware ; so called after the part of Kyoto from 
which the original porcelain-maker came about thirty years 
years ago. 

The Japanese have a great number of national and local 
festivals, beginning with a three days' holiday at the New 
Year. August seems to be the only month without a special 
festival, but the 1st, 15th, and 28th of every month is cele- 
brated at most temples. As a matter of convenience, and 
to give employees a day off each week, the government 
offices close on Sunday ; and, as the foreign banks close on 
many of the Japanese festivals, and on most of the European 
ones as well, the residents in the Treaty Ports have frequent 
holidays. Of the foreign holidays the most popular is the 
Fourth of July, when a subscription is raised for a display 
of fireworks at night and " smoke-pieces " during the after- 
noon. The latter consisted of rockets exploding in the air 
and emitting smoke which took the form of beasts and birds, 
but these were not very successful. A mediocre dancing 
performance was to be seen in the courtyard of the hotel 
before dinner, but in the evening the fireworks were such as 
we had never seen equalled anywhere. The rockets, shot 
from a long bamboo tube, attained an incredible height 
before exploding. There were very good set pieces repre- 
senting Columbia, Niagara Falls, and the Union Jack and 
Stars and Stripes intertwined, the latter evoking enthusias- 
tic cheers. The order in which the fireworks were let off 
showed a defect in the management, and led to an anti- 
climax : but the scene from the roof of the Grand Hotel 
was most fascinating. The coloured lights and lanterns on 
the veranda and balcony, both crowded with Europeans in 
evening-dress, lit up the scene at our feet ; Bengal fires 
flared upon the townspeople massed in the street ; and the 
big electric lights kept up a steady glare. Out in the 
harbour in front of us the fireworks were being let off from 



280 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

a row of boats, and behind them the ships at their moorings 
were illuminated. There were wonderful combinations of 
the various coloured lights, and together they formed a 
beautiful and extremely brilliant and effective picture. 

We had a very pleasant day's excursion from Tokyo to 
Narita, by the train that crawls along the northern shore of 
Tokyo Bay and over the Shimosa plain. It was the monthly 
festival of the temple of Fudo, and there were big crowds 
of " pilgrims " at the stations, both going and returning, 
which perhaps accounts for the fact that we took over three 
hours, including stops, to do about forty-five miles by train. 
But we found the holiday crowd interesting and amusing, 
and these sentiments were reciprocated by a band of young 
boys from the Military School, who followed us about the 
whole day. 

The temple is very curious in many ways, and its wood- 
carvings are equal to any we saw in Japan. The main gate 
(ni-o-mon) is carved with groups of Chinese children and 
sages. The doors of the main shrine (liondo^ are orna- 
mented with twelve panels, carved by Shimamura Shumbyo, 
measuring two and a half feet by two feet, and representing 
the Twenty -four Models of Filial Duty, all extremely well- 
executed. Eight magnificent panels, nine feet long by four 
feet high, carved in low relief by Matsumoto Ryozan, orna- 
ment the sides and back of the building. Buddha's "Five 
Hundred Disciples" are carved in groups with an accuracy 
and wealth of detail, combined with boldness of execution, 
worthy of all praise. At the entrance is a shrine with an 
image of K5b5 Daishi and some well-carved dragons. 

Near the gateway are buildings devoted to pilgrims under- 
going a religious fast (danjiki) of a week, during which they 
take frequent cold baths. Another building is occupied by 
pilgrims seated around a big rosary. The approach to the 
main temple is up a flight of steps through a rockery deco- 
rated with bronze and stone ex-voto images ; and behind the 
shrine containing the sacred black image of Fudo, the god 
of wisdom, is another rockery with thirty-six little bronze 
statues, and in a cave above is another Fud5. The pagoda, 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 281 

the revolving library, and the bell-tower are all worth exami- 
nation ; and the ex-voto Hall and Shed contain many curious 
offerings, from barnacle-encrusted anchors, recovered from the 
sea, to a huge rosary threaded on a cable made of human hair. 

From the Jiinikai, a twelve-storeyed tower 220 feet in height, 
near the Asakusa Temple, is to be had the most extended view 
of T5kyo. This cit}^, with wide streets and low buildings 
with curved-tile roofs, covers an area ten miles square, and 
contains about one and one-third million inhabitants lodged 
in something over three hundred thousand houses. London 
has about three times as many inhabitants per square mile ; 
and New York, before its recent increase of area, four and one- 
half times as many. What is particularly striking, in this 
view over the city, is the great number of trees, and the ap- 
parent profusion of green in every direction, owing to the fact 
that the trees rise above the houses except where some temple 
uplifts its roofs, or where, a mile or so to the north, a cluster 
of buildings higher and finer than those to be seen in any other 
quarter indicates the situation of the famous Yoshiwara. 

Tall iron chimney-shafts, and shorter square brick ones, 
proclaim the fact that Tokyo has large manufacturing in- 
terests ; but however often you may visit the capital, you 
will never lose the impression, as you go through its miles 
of streets, that you are travelling in the vast suburbs of a 
great city, and not in the city itself. Moreover, it is an ex- 
tremely difficult place in which to find any given address, as 
the numbering of the houses appears to be somewhat erratic, 
and the smaller streets are hard to find. 

In Ueno Park are the tombs of six of the Tokugawa sho- 
guns, the splendid temples of which are neglected and going 
to ruin. In the interiors of them thick dust covers the fine 
black lacquer, and accumulates around and under the mats ; 
and the ravages of time and the elements are allowed to go 
unrepaired. But the shrines themselves are, indeed, "gor- 
geous specimens of gold-lacquer," perfect in workmanship, 
and with the metallic lustre of the best damascene. In the 
Jigen-d5, close by, is a famous portrait by Kano Tanyii. 
The so-called " bronze " image of Buddha in Ueno seems to 



282 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

be made of cement. The bullet-riddled gate, the colossal 
stone lantern, ard the carved gate restored in 1890, but al- 
ready grown dingy, are not far away. The museum does 
not contain much of artistic excellence, but the Mikado's 
ancient bullock-cart, throne, and robes, and a model of the 
shogun's state barge, are interesting. 

From Ueno we visited the Higashi Hongwanji, a large temple 
covered with wire netting as a protection against fire ; and 
then proceeded to the ever-popular Asakusa Kwannon to see 
the people, the big bell, and the celebrated wooden image of 
Binzuru, carved by Jikaku Daishi, which believers rub to 
cure disease. If you have a bad eye, rub Binzuru's eye and 
then your own, and so on. As the image is worn down to 
almost a shapeless log by continual rubbings, it is appall- 
ing to think how much contagion may have been spread in 
this way. 

On the Kudan Hill is a fine museum of arms (Yushii-kwan) 
situated near the race-course, which latter contains an heroic 
bronze statue of the patriot Omura Hy5bu Taiyii. In the 
same neighbourhood is the modern Shinto temple of Sho- 
konsha, built in strict conformity with ancient models, with 
projecting rafter-ends (jsMgi) and thick bark shingling (Jii- 
wadabuhi) on the roof. In the grounds is a huge bronze 
torii made at the Osaka arsenal. We made a visit in the 
early morning to the fish-market, which consists of several 
streets of small shops plentifully supplied with fresh water. 
Each shop exhibits its Avares in tubs of water which occupy 
the pavements almost to the centre of the street, leaving but 
a narrow lane between. In these tubs all but the largest 
fish are shown swimming about, and are sold alive. 

We saw the Shiba temples on a brilliant morning in 
June, and we inspected the faded glories of the temples 
and tombs of the six shoguns ; the monastery of Zojoji, with 
its carved image of Amida by an artist who flourished nine 
hundred years ago ; Gokoku-den, with its paintings of hawks, 
and its bronze statue of Shaka ; the temple of Tenei-in; 
the Hakkaku-do ; and temple of Ankoku-den. Of all 
these the mortuary temple of the 6th, 12th, and 14th sh5- 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO " 283 

guns is undoubtedly the finest. But first we passed tliree 
ornamental, but more or less damaged, gates, to the temple 
of the 7th and 9th shoguns, whose portico contains carvings 
of two dragons. From the double-coffered ceiling of the 
oratory (Jiaideri), whose walls are ornamented with im- 
possible lions, hangs a baldachin under which the abbot 
sits on great occasions. The corridor connecting and lead- 
ing to the sanctuary (seislio') ends at a pair of gilt gates, be- 
hind which are three gold-lacquer and metal- work shrines, 
and a couple of red-lacquer tables. 

The gates which lead to the tombs of the 7th and 9th sho- 
guns are curiously carved with dragons, and at the side are 
excellently carved peacocks. The copper facing of the 
tombs is decorated with conventional waves and plum-trees. 
The temple of the 6th, 12th, and 14th shoguns is less faded 
than the others ; and the wood-carvings of birds and flowers 
in the oratory are delicately executed and accurately coloured. 
The general effect is that of richness and magnificence, with- 
out the usual accompaniment of gaudiness. The tombs 
themselves are remarkable for the bronze-work connected 
with them. 

There are splendid lacquer shrines at Tenei-in, gold and 
black panelling, and coffered ceilings. The gold-lacquer 
shrine of the second shogun was made shortly after his 
death, in 1632, while the tomb under which he is buried in 
the Hakkaku-do is said to be " the largest specimen of gold- 
lacquer in the world." There is a gold-lacquer shrine, with 
clever representations of bamboos and pines on the sides, at 
the Shinto temple of Ankoku-den, where there is also a beauti- 
ful coffered ceiling and an old Buddhist picture. We spent 
the remainder of the day in Shiba Park, visiting the tombs of 
the Forty-seven Ronin, at Senkakugi, and going to see the 
old carved images of the Five Buddhas at Nyoraiji, on our 
way back to the railway station at Shinagawa. 

In the first week of June we went on a Tianami, as a day's 
outing to see cultivated flowers is called. Having provided 
ourselves with the necessary permit, we first visited Prince 
Mito's garden (K5raku-en); then went to see the irises at 



284 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

Horikiri, and on our way back stopped to see the landscape 
garden of Satake YasMki. The hanami is in Japan what a 
visit to a flower-show is in Europe. It may be undertaken 
for the sake of seeing flowers, or it may be for other attrac- 
tions of a social nature for which the flowers are only an 
excuse, or of secondary consideration. The Japanese are said 
to be fond of flowers; yet, curiously enough, they form no 
necessary part of a Japanese garden, nor do flowering plants 
usually adorn the vacant spaces around the houses, or flower- 
ing creepers cover them. The cultivation of flowers is left 
to the temples, to a few public parks and gardens, and to 
the professional horticulturists. At various localities in or 
around Tokyo can be seen, at their respective seasons, the 
plum- and cherry-trees in blossom; and peonies, wistarias, 
azaleas, irises, convolvuli, lotus-flowers, and chrysanthe- 
mums follow each other at the florists' gardens, where for 
a few days, several acres of plants in bloom can be seen and 
admired on the payment of a small entrance fee. We visited 
Musashiya's iris farm at Horikiri, and Yoshinoyen's half a 
mile away at Yotsugi, Honjio, where there was a still finer 
display of blooms. Both places were crowded with holiday- 
makers who had come out in jinrikishas along the banks of 
the Sumida-gawa and under the cherry-trees of Mukojima. 
They were spending the day drinking tea and sake and, at 
times, walking about the "gardens." 

There are wild flowers in abundance in Japan, and moun- 
tain walks will reveal many beautiful specimens ; but, owing 
to the absence of fences or hedges dividing the fields, to the 
close cultivation of the land, which permits nothing useless to 
grow, and perhaps to the sterility of the soil itself, there are 
few wild flowers to be seen in the thickly-inhabited country- 
side. 

As a rule both wild and cultivated flowers are devoid of 
scent, or it is too faint to reach ordinary nostrils. Sir 
Rutherford Alcock says bluntly, "The flowers have no 
scent " ; and he will appear to most people to be nearer the 
truth than the clever ladies whose delicate noses have en- 
abled them to find all Tokyo sweet with the fragrance of 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 285 

wistarias and azaleas, to declare that the species of water-lily, 
called in Japan the lotus-flower (renge), fills the air with 
perfume, and to discover the fragrance in Japanese roses 
and plum-blossoms. From the hills around Kagoshima, 
where we found wild arum-lilies, right through Japan to 
Hakodate, where we found lilies-of-the-valley, we saw many 
varieties of cultivated and wild flowers ; but not one in ten 
had any perfume at all, and of those that have any, perhaps the 
most marked and agreeable is the scent of the Cape jasmine 
(kuchinaski). Yet Japan and Europe both got from China 
the sweet-scented gardenias, white wistarias, and jasmines, as 
well as tree peonies, primulus, azaleas, and chrysanthemums. 

Robert Fortune, who was sent out by the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society in 1843, and who, in addition to his great 
contributions to science, rendered an incalculable benefit to 
India by introducing into that country the cultivation of tea, 
sent from China to England during the following three years 
most of these flowers as well as the double yellow rose, the 
weigela, the lyre-flower, the fan-palm, and the kumquat. 
From Japan, which Fortune visited in 1853, were sent the 
white anemone, the arum-lily, the aucuba, the China-rose, the 
golden larch, the evergreen barberry, and the cryptomeria. 
But notwithstanding all these contributions by Japan to 
English gardens, there are no flower gardens in Japan to 
compare with those to be found scattered all over England. 

To make an ordinary Japanese garden only requires a 
cart-load of rocks, a pail of water, a modicum of ingenuity, 
and unlimited imagination, — all concentrated on a space the 
size of a mat. To make a more perfect garden, a " miniature 
paradise," whose creation is considered " half -necromancy," 
add a dwarf pine-tree, tortured out of its natural shape with 
permanent bandages and bits of wood and string, or some 
which " the patient gardeners have bent, interlaced, tied, 
weighted down, and propped up the limbs and twigs." 
Multiply these items by ten, and you have a landscape gar- 
den, which is " a leafy, lake-centred paradise, and a marvel 
of artistic arrangement." Multiply by a hundred and you 
have a place of pilgrimage like the "two model landscape 



286 YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 

gardens of Japan," at the Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji temples 
in Kyoto, which, in the opinion of enthusiasts, entitle the 
Japanese to be called " the foremost landscape gardeners in 
the world." 

The Prince of Mito's garden, which adjoins the Koishi- 
kawa Arsenal, is said to be two hundred years old, and it is 
acknowledged by European writers to be the finest, not only 
in T5ky6, but in all Japan. It covers several acres, and 
reproduces in miniature, but on a " practicable " scale, scenes 
celebrated in Japanese literature and art. And there are, 
in addition, fine old trees in it, growing as nature intended. 
But this garden can only be inspected on one day in the 
week. An order from the military authorities is necessary 
before you can gain admittance, and it is visited by few Japa- 
nese or Europeans. It is a very pretty garden, and the only 
one we saw in Japan that could, without a strain on the 
imagination, be properly called a landscape garden. As an 
example of creative ability, or of difficulties overcome in 
reproducing natural landscape effects by artificial means, 
Prince Mito's garden cannot be compared with the Golden 
Gate Park, covering the sand-dunes in San Francisco, or with 
Central Park, planted on the barren rocks in New York. 
Nor are there to be found in Japan such botanical gardens 
as exist at Peradeniya in Ceylon, at Buitenzorg in Java, or 
at Kew in England. 

The miniature scenes formed in the gardens of a Japanese 
house or inn lose much of their interest and impressiveness 
owing to the proximity of household objects which intrude 
upon the view ; and it is difficult to acquire that mental de- 
tachment necessary in order to contemplate with reverence 
the Fuji-yama overtopped by the handle of a dipper leaning 
against it, the Lake Hakone reduced to insignificance by the 
adjacent rice-pail, or the pine-tree of Karasaki entirely over- 
spread by a hand-towel. Cleared of these encumbrances 
and other distractions, a circumscribed view at a proper 
distance would perhaps foster the illusion, or, at any rate, 
would compel admiration for the ingenuity, time, and 
patience expended in producing the effect. The Japanese 



YOKOHAMA AND TOKYO 287 

seem capable of the necessary concentration to exclude from 
their vision all details not relevant to the picture. Euro- 
peans would be compelled to wear blinkers to get the same 
pleasure from a Japanese garden. 

There are certain conventions to be followed in Japanese 
gardening, and in the arrangement of flowers in the house. 
Under the head of " flowers " are included twigs or branches 
of various trees. The first canon seems to be, " Avoid sym- 
metry and cultivate unevenness " ; and the second to avoid 
parallel lines, or those that cross each other. In gardening 
nothing must be allowed to grow naturally, but must be 
made to conform to some model ; while in the art of the 
arrangement of flowers (ike-hana) each branch or flower 
should be placed in the flower-vase (liana-ike) so that it 
assumes the position natural to it when growing. It is this 
close adherence to natural position in the arrangement of 
flowers, and in their representation in painting and other 
arts, that enables the Japanese to produce such successful 
decorative effects with them. However, the unsymmetrical 
convention in ike-liana has certain definite proportions and 
rules that place at its foundation the arrangement of branches 
of flowers in three curved lines, having lengths in relation 
to each other of one, two, and four ; so that if the longest 
branch which is placed in the middle of a vase measures two 
feet, the branch curving to the left should measure one foot, 
and that curving to the right six inches. 

In the vicinity of Horikiri, hedges and fences, which are 
unusual in Japan except near the big cities, surround the 
houses ; and at the time of our visit, during the first week 
in June, rice was being planted out in the adjacent fields. 



CHAPTER XXV 

JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 

A Wrestling Match. Heavy-weights. Theatres. Danjuro. The 
Forty-seven Ronin. The Maple Leaf Club. A Club Dinner. 
Japanese Dancing. Music. 

The temple of Eko-in, in Ryogoku, was en fHe in early 
June, when we saw the great semi-annual wrestling (sumo') 
matches, which draw enormous crowds across the Sumida- 
gawa to the Buddhist temple, built where the victims of the 
great fire of 1657 were interred in a common grave. Lovers 
of domestic animals will be interested also in the graves of 
these pets, for whom a burial service can be procured for a 
small payment. But the point of attraction was the arena, 
where the heavy-weights of Japan wrestled for supremacy ; 
and we procured seats on the wooden benches covered with 
matting overlooking the circus, in whose centre was the 
elevated platform containing " the ring." We had seen con- 
tests between local celebrities at the wrestling places (sumo 
goyd) in Hydgo and other towns. At Hy5go the ring was 
only fifteen feet in diameter ; at Eko-in it is larger. The 
umpire, armed with the peculiar-shaped, stiff, heavy war-fan 
(gumhai ucMwa), enters the ring. He is of the family of 
Kimura, and his position is hereditary. There is also a 
judge at each corner of the stand ; and one of them calls out 
the names of the contestants, who are divided into two 
camps. 

From the Japan Times we procured the following de- 
tails of the names, ages, heights, and weights of the 
champions. A shaku is .994 of an English foot.) 

288 



JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 289 

Umenotani — age 22, height 5.54 shaku, weight 36^ kwan (about 

302 lbs.). 
Ozntsu — age 31, height 6.44 shaku, weight 34.42 kwan (about 285 lbs.). 
Hitachiyama — age 27, height 5.70 shaku, weight 30.35 kwan (about 

251 lbs.). 
Konishiki — age 33, height 5.53 shaku, weight 28.53 kwan (about 

236 lbs.). 
Asashio — age 36, height 5.88 shaku, weight 26.50 ktoan (about 

220 lbs.). 
Genjiyama — age 36, height 5.75 shaku, weight 25.70 kwan (about 

213 lbs.). 

Hitachiyama was the winner, at the last spring matches, 
of the apron given for scoring the greatest number of victo- 
ries. These gigantic men, displaying great rolls of fat, wad- 
dled into the ring as their turns came, wearing only the 
diminutive breech-cloth (koshi-ohi) and the silken belt 
twisted in the shape of the straw-rope (shimenawa), with 
which the torii are decorated on New Year's Day — to com- 
memorate the legend of Ama-terasu the sun goddess, who 
was enticed from her cave by the mirror, and prevented 
from retiring again by the rope hung across the cave's 
mouth. 

As each champion enters the ring, he drinks a dipper of 
water, spits on his hands, stretches his arms and legs to ex- 
hibit his muscles to the admiring crowd, has another drink 
of water, takes a position with his hands resting on his bent 
knees, and awaits his adversary ; who goes through the same 
performance, and stands in the same position opposite. The 
umpire sees that they are properly placed, and they sink on 
their haunches leaning forward on clenched fists, which rest 
on the ground, thumbs to the front. No signal to start is 
given ; but if both move forward for a grip at the same time, 
the round begins. If one makes a beginning and the other 
is " not of the same mind," both retire for more water, and 
they face each other again. Even when they have " come 
to grips," they are from time to time separated by the um- 
pire, in order that they may drink more water ; and the 
umpire afterward replaces the grips, and the interrupted 
round goes on. It is " catch-as-catch-can," and any part of 



290 JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 

the body touching the ground counts as a "fall," as also 
does being pushed or carried out of the ring. 

Wrestling in Japan dates from the most ancient times ; 
and there is a legend that two brothers left the decision of 
their rival claims to the throne itself to a contest between 
their champions in the wrestling ring. There are said to be 
twelve twists, and as many lifts, throws, and throws-over-the- 
back, or forty-eight " falls " in all ; each with eight varia- 
tions. All of these are supposed to be known to the 
champion wrestler ; but all the rounds we saw won here 
or elsewhere were terminated by the stronger (which usu- 
ally meant the heavier) man pushing or even carrying his 
antagonist out of the ring. The defeated wrestler retires 
smiling, and at local contests another takes his place and 
faces the winner of the round. 

As we left the temple grounds, a banner cast a shadow 
over the left eye of the big Buddha facing the entrance, and 
the eyelid seemed to slowly droop and quiver, as if the sage 
realised what was taking place, and was sufficiently modern 
to perpetrate a wink at the gigantic humbug that semi- 
annually brings so many yen into the temple coffers. 

Among the theatrical performances we witnessed in Japan, 
two stand out prominently on account of the actors who 
took part. One was at the Tsuta-za in Yokohama, where a 
company from Osaka performed a number of short plays, in 
which the actor Bizensodo took several female roles with con- 
siderable success. The other was at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, 
where the great Danjiiro was playing one of the many ver- 
sions of the ever-popular Ohushingura (" The Forty-seven 
Ronin"). 

Both of these theatres are constructed on the general plan 
common throughout Japan, although they differ in some 
details. The stage is large and nearly square, and a circular 
turn-table (sometimes constructed with an inner turn-table), 
nearly the full size of the stage, enables one scene to be set 
behind, while the action takes place in the scene facing the 
audience. This arrangement has many advantages. The 
scenes can be rapidly changed ; and the action need not be 



JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 291 

inteiTupted during the change of scenery. If the characters 
change with the scene, the actors remain on the revolving 
portion of the stage, and disappear as the new scene comes 
into view; but if one or more characters continue the action 
while the scene changes, as would be the case if the play- 
required them to travel from one place to another, they have 
only to remain on the margin of the stage, which is station- 
ary, while the revolving part moves and introduces a new 
scene. And in the matter of scenery and costumes, whether 
representing ancient or modern times, the Japanese theatres 
will bear comparison with those of any country. 

Leading from either side of the stage, at right angles to 
the foot-lights, are narrow platforms, level with the stage, 
carried right through the audience to the " front " of the 
house, where your clogs or boots are left in exchange for a 
ticket when you enter the theatre. These are called hana- 
michi (" flower- way "), because it is here that the popular 
actor receives the tributes of the audience as he makes his 
"entrance." For here, the character who has lines to speak 
or actions to play "off," or before his "entrance," can act 
his part in sight of the audience, as he approaches the scene. 
The hana-michi to the left, facing the stage, is the one usu- 
ally used for entrances, and is, in the Kabuki-za, wide enough 
to accommodate a jinrikisha ; the one to the right is nar- 
rower, and generally used for exits. In the square between 
the stage and the hana-michi^ and sunk about three feet be- 
low it, is what would have been called in olden times " the 
pit." It is divided into compartments six feet square, which 
hold exactly "two mats." Upon these four people are sup- 
posed to sit ; but as many as six at a time crowd into one of 
them. Between the compartments, or boxes, is a rail a few 
inches wide, upon which people walk to go in and out, and 
get to their places. Outside of the hana-michi^ between them 
and the gallery, are the most expensive boxes. There is a 
curtain, which, in a theatre where a popular actor is playing, 
is probably a present from his admirers. In the smaller 
theatres it may be covered with advertisements. The signal 
for the raising of the curtain is the same as at the Comedie 



292 JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 

Frangaise, three raps on the floor with a pole. We counted 
in the pit of the Kabuki-za 120 boxes ; outside of the hana- 
michi 60 boxes; lower gallery 30 boxes; upper gallery 70 
boxes ; in all 280 boxes, which probably held, when we were 
there, an average of 5, or an audience of 1400 people. 

The theatres in Japan ordinarily give performances lasting 
eight to ten hours, according to the play; and the curtain 
goes up on the first scene at 10 to 11 a.m., and descends on 
the last at 8 or 9 p.m., or even as late as midnight. The 
Osaka Company were giving a " short " performance, lasting 
only from eleven in the morning to eight at night. In some 
provincial places they are said to begin as early as 6 A.M. Of 
course creature comforts are provided for ; and the tea-house, 
through which you have, in the customary way, secured your 
places, which cost from fivepence up, serves you with tea, 
rice, and other delicacies, which are consumed in your " box." 
Before the day is over there will probably not be a " box " 
without a kettle on the boil over its portable brazier, and a 
pot of tea going. The people in the audience come to spend 
the day and make a picnic of it. We go fairly early, and 
spend some hours. There is a programme with a synopsis 
of the plot, or plots, and illustrations of the most striking 
situations. The curtain goes up and the " chorus," in a sort 
of cage a few feet above the stage on the right-hand side, 
begins to open the story to the accompaniment of stringed 
instruments. 

In some of the smaller theatres and shows the side of the 
building facing the street is open ; and a large curtain, which 
is let down when the performance is going on, is lifted from 
time to time so that the people in the street can get, over the 
heads of the seated audience, such glimpses of the stage as 
will induce them to pay for a ticket of admittance. 

Presently one of the actors makes his appearance from be- 
hind us in the pit and advances to the stage along the hana- 
miehi. He utters no word, but the chorus tells us what he 
is thinking about, and why he approaches. Throughout the 
play, as the plot develops, the chorus informs the audience 
of what is passing in the actor's mind, so that there is never 



JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 293 

any need of " asides," and there are no soliloquies. Smoking 
is universal and continuous in the audience, and the tap-tap 
of the pipes on the bamboo ash-holders punctuates all the 
speeches, in a manner that must be annoying to the actors. 

As occasion requires some " property " to be removed, or 
handed on during the action, a super dressed in black and 
with a black hood, which is supposed to render him invisible, 
boldly walks on and brings or takes the necessary article. 
If one of the characters is killed, as frequently happens, for 
the Japanese love a bloodthirsty play, two such supers walk 
on with a black cloth which they hold up as a screen, behind 
which the dead man crawls away as they walk off. 

The actors speak in the unnatural, guttural, sing-song 
manner which is conventional; but their acting, although 
exaggerated, is good, and their expression of emotions ex- 
cellent. For some centuries it was illegal for men and 
women to act together ; and since the ban has been removed, 
prejudice and custom have been as effective as the law. 
Companies composed exclusively of women are not unknown ; 
but nowhere in Japan can you see a theatrical company com- 
posed of both sexes, such as that seen in Paris and London, 
when the well-known Japanese actor, Kawakami, produced 
plays in which he acted with his wife, the graceful Sada 
Yacco. The female parts are therefore taken by male actors ; 
and Bizensodo, who took the part of a very much abused 
wife in one of the plays, was very clever indeed. 

During the hours before twilight, the daylight falls on 
the stage through open windows, except when some effect of 
darkness is to be produced on the stage. At the Kabuki-za 
there is a huge cluster of electric lights suspended from the 
centre of the house to light the auditorium at night, ten foot- 
lights and three open gas jets of three burners each at the 
front of the stage, and three gas standards at each side. The 
theatres are regular tinder-boxes, and it is a wonder they 
do not more frequently catch fire. Between the acts the 
audience visit each other's boxes, and there is general conver- 
sation; while the children, of whom there is usually a con- 
siderable number, invade the hana-michi, and even the stage. 



294 JAPANESE ENTEETAINMENTS 

Ichikawa Danjuro, the eighth successive Danjiir5 known 
to the Japanese stage, was born about the year 1840, and is 
known in private life as Horikoshi Shu. He is the acknow- 
ledged head of his profession, and we saw him in his most 
popular play. It is perhaps a sufficient compliment to his 
acting and that of his support, to say that his high reputation 
is well deserved, and that one does not require to know the 
language in order to understand the plot or enjoy the play. 

The story of Oishi and the forty-six other retainers of 
Asano, Daimyo of Ak5, who was condemned to commit hara- 
Jciri because he had drawn blood from the Daimy5 Kira in 
the Royal palace — their patient but deadly vendetta, which 
only ended when they had killed Kira and placed his head 
on Asano's grave ; and their own death by harakiri and 
burial by their master's side, has many variations in details, 
and some of the plays founded on it take days to perform. 
But the plays are divided into acts, each one of which is a 
complete story in itself; and among several acts we saw, two 
stand out in a particularly vivid manner. One was the story 
of Oishi, who, in order to deceive the spies who are on his 
track, signs the deed divorcing his wife, whereupon his little 
daughter, in hope of effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing 
her own life, stabs herself in the neck with a sword and dies. 
Danjiiro was magnificent in his portrayal of the conflict 
between his affections and his duty ; and the acting of the 
small boy who took the child's part showed careful training 
that must have been begun at a very tender age. The audi- 
ence, although probably knowing the play by heart, followed 
the action with breathless interest ; and, with hardly an ex- 
ception, both men and women were affected to tears, and 
were keenly responsive to the art of the actors and the 
incidents of the tragedy. 

Another act was the meeting of the Ronin on the memo- 
rable January night in the year 1703, when, during a violent 
snowstorm, they forced Kira's gate. The stage effect of 
the snowstorm was superior to similar effects we had seen 
on European stages, and the actors never forgot, in any of 
their " business," that they were in a snowstorm. Before 



JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 295 

leaving, we were invited to go behind the scenes and to 
climb up to the artists' dressing-rooms, where we saw them 
in various stages of deshabille, some being up to their necks 
in a hot bath ; but all were exceedingly civil, and seemed to 
appreciate the interest we took in their old costumes and 
weapons. 

We afterward went to Sengakugi to revisit the graves of 
Asano, Oishi, and the rest of the band. Before each tomb 
incense was burning, and throughout the two centuries the 
populace have seen that this mark of reverence and respect 
has never been lacking, while thousands show the same sen- 
timents in the quaint custom of leaving their visiting-cards 
on the tomb of their favourite hero. There are relics of the 
Ronin preserved in a building within the gate, but no relic 
is more zealously guarded than is the memory of the Forty- 
seven Ronin in the hearts of the Japanese people. 

The " Maple Leaf Club " (Koyo-kwan) in Shiba Park is 
celebrated for its dinners and for the geisha and maiko who 
assist at these functions. It is in reality not strictly a club, 
as strangers are admitted on payment of ten sen (two and a 
half pence) ; and you can drop in for a cup of tea served in 
the national way, with the water-cooler, in which the boiling 
water from the kettle is allowed to cool to about 120° F. 
before it is poured on the tea. Or, if you desire to play host, 
you can command an evening's entertainment which will cost 
yoTi as much as twenty to twenty-five yen (,£2 to X2:10:0) 
for each guest. At one of these we were given an elaborate 
dinner which included a number of peculiar delicacies. Un- 
der the head of hors cCceuvres Qcuchitori^ was tsukudani, tiny 
smoked trout (^ai) with bay leaves and soy. There was soup 
containing young sardines or whitebait (shirasu), and thin 
slices of plain raw fish (sasTiimi), as well as a second course 
(ni-no-zen) of fish served in vinegar with stewed vegetables 
(namasu). Fish-cakes (kamaboko), a salad (sunomono), and 
a rather tasteless sweet made from seaweed were also offered 
us. Everything left uneaten by us, even to bits of fish we 
had partly eaten, was neatly done up in little boxes filled 
with rice, and sent away with us in our jinrikishas. This 



296 JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 

custom still prevails in the private houses of Japanese gen- 
tlemen. 

We refused here, as elsewhere in Japan, the salad and all 
other raw vegetables, as well as ground fruit, such as straw- 
berries, which are all dangerous to eat on account of the 
disgusting methods of fertilisation employed in cultivating 
them. For similar reasons we avoided shell-fish and raw fish 
generally, as well as ice ; and for drinking purposes the only 
water we used was that bottled at the Hirano or Tanzan 
springs. 

But to return to our dinner. Seated on the floor opposite 
each of our tiny tables was a geisha^ whose business it was 
to entertain us and to keep our cups full of sake as we drank 
it in sips with the dishes, such as those containing fish 
(sahana), it is intended to wash down. We were each given 
a fan upon which to write the customary laudatory verse, 
and our geisha obligingly fulfilled this duty for us. 

But the dancing was what we had looked forward to with 
the pleasantest anticipations ; for we had all read of the 
" troupe of dazzling maiko " to be seen here, and of the grace 
and beauty of their dances (odori). We were first given a 
No performance, whose ancient mystic significance we failed 
to grasp ; then a pantomimic " washerwoman's dance," which 
required no explanation, a fan dance, and the " maple-leaf " 
dance. Almost any Spanish woman could give these fa- 
mous maiJco points in the manipulation of a fan that would 
make their oblique little eyes open with admiration 
and envy ; but the " maple-leaf " dance was really too 
absurd. On account of the supposed resemblance of a hand, 
with its five fingers outstretched, to a maple-leaf with its 
five points, you are expected to imagine you can see in the 
slowly moving hands with outstretched fingers the waving 
of the leaves on the tree. When the hand circles down- 
ward to the ground you must be amazed at the clever imi- 
tation of a falling leaf ; when the hands are turned over you 
must picture to yourself the turning of the leaf from the 
green of summer to the brilliant tints of autumn, and say, 
" How wonderful ! " 



JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENTS 297 

The maiko were brilliantly dressed, extremely picturesque, 
and down to a certain point very graceful. That point is 
the waist, below which there was no grace of movement, nor, 
as a rule, any attempt at a graceful pose. This was the 
rule throughout Japan, to which we only found one excep- 
tion, and that was in one at the Maple Leaf Club. One, 
and only one of all the maiko who danced before us, realised 
that the lower part of the body could be gracefully employed 
as well as the arms and upper half ; and that even the feet 
might show to better advantage than when planted flat on 
the ground. And the dancing of this one maiko was the 
nearest approach to anything comparable in point of grace 
to the skirt-dancing of the modern European theatre. Jap- 
anese dancing is always modest to a degree. The excep- 
tional Chon Kina, and such exhibitions of lewdness as the 
Curio Dance, which may be seen in the low inns near the 
railwaj^ station in Yokohama, are in reality not dances ; and 
the latter at any rate is certainly not Japanese. 

The instrumental music and singing which accompanied 
the odori were as devoid of harmony as most Japanese music ; 
but the strumming was in perfect time, and the efforts of 
the singers seemed to be devoted to the production, in a 
high nasal quaver, of a note which is dwelt on until the 
singer's breath is exhausted, when a fresh start is made on 
another note. These notes are practically the same as the 
tones and semi-tones of our musical scales, but some of 
the intervals sound unfamiliar. The Japanese advance in 
the study of European music is slow, and their musical ear 
difficult of cultivation. The chanting of the Buddhist priests 
is very similar to some of our old chants, and Japanese 
choirs have been taught to sing church music with precision 
and accuracy ; but the singing is entirely without expres- 
sion. It is the same with the brass bands. The bands at 
the Emperor's garden party, and the one employed by the 
Grand Hotel at Yokohama, were the best we heard, and when 
it came to a well-marked tune in common time, which is 
the time in which all Japanese music is played, they played 
very acceptably ; but the moment they attempted any music 



298 JAPANESE ENTEKTAINMENTS 

requiring expression or feeling they made a dismal failure of 
it. Anything in march time pleases them, and the most popu- 
lar foreign air with Japanese bands is the American war-song, 
" Marching through Georgia." A Japanese gentleman pres- 
ent professed to prefer European music because he thought 
the tones changed more rapidly than in Japanese, and there- 
fore gave "greater variety." 

On another occasion, a Japanese who had made frequent 
voyages abroad, and had had considerable opportunity of 
hearing European music, listened with apparent pleasure to 
the air " When I went to Mr. Geogan's Fancy Ball," from 
"The Belle of New York"; and when this lively jig was 
played again at his request, thanked the performers, and 
said he recognised the music as that of " Home, Sweet 
Home" ! 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE JAPANESE 

Physical Characteristics. Food. Children. Blindness. Comparisons. 
The Classes and the Masses. The Franchise. Politics and Parties. 
" Japan for the Japanese." Commercial Dishonesty. " Evasions of 
Veracity." 

The physical characteristics of Japanese men of the upper 
class are so well known as to require no description. The 
peasant's face is rounder and the nose is flat, approaching 
the African type, whereas the samurai comes nearer to the 
Malay or, in some cases, to the North American Indian. 
The hair is almost invariably black and straight. The 
abnormal shortness of the legs is thought to be caused by the 
continual sitting on them, and the general lack of muscular 
development to " national under-feeding. " It may be pointed 
out that the class of wrestlers who practise systematic " over- 
feeding " has produced a type of larger men which has the 
appearance of an entirely different race. The jinrikisha men 
and the boatmen, as well as some mechanics whose trades 
necessitate proper exercise, develop a fair amount of leg 
muscle. But improper and insufficient food has undoubtedly 
caused in the past, as may be seen by the weazen and 
shrivelled old people, a deterioration in the race, which has 
perhaps now been arrested. At any rate, the era of pros- 
perity following the war with China has witnessed a marked 
improvement in the people's dietary, which is in many ways 
apparent. 

Rice, the staple food of the country, was for the poorer 
peasants too much an article of luxury to be regularly con- 
sumed, and millet, barley, and wheat formed their princi- 
pal diet. These grains are boiled, in the same way as rice, 

299 



300 THE JAPANESE 

and eaten witli raw fish or vegetables, and perhaps flavoured 
with soy. In the southern part of the country the cheaper 
sweet-potato, which we found of excellent flavour, takes the 
place of cereals. To the large consumption of raw and badly- 
cured fish is to be ascribed the leprosy prevalent in Japan. 

The products of the " kitchen garden " are, as a rule, 
almost tasteless, and fruits are equally poor. Of the indige- 
nous fruits commonly eaten the sweet-orange (miJcan') and 
the persimmon (kaki) are the most plentiful, and the loquat 
(hiiva) has the most agreeable flavour. Pears, peaches, sour 
plums, figs, and pomegranates are also grown, and apples and 
cherries have been introduced in recent years; but none of 
these fruits have much flavour. We were told that the 
strawberries were very good, but, having seen them grown, 
we eat them not. Radishes of an enormous size and pungent 
flavour are a favourite relish, eaten raw with the boiled 
grain. This almost universal vegetarian diet was not the 
result of choice but of necessity ; and although the Buddhist 
religion forbids the killing of any living creature, and con- 
sequently the eating of animal food, we never met a Buddhist 
coolie whose religious scruples prevented him from eating 
the meat we gave him, and the avidity with which European 
food was consumed, showed the keenest appreciation of the 
flesh-pots. 

The consumption of fresh beef is slowly increasing, and 
dairy farming is also growing, but all attempts to acclimatise 
sheep have so far failed. A flock of four hundred were 
imported into Kyiishii, but of these all but seven perished 
during the first season from eating the sharp-edged bamboo- 
grass, which caused death by cutting the intestines. The 
survivors, however, bred, and had increased in 1899 to a flock 
of fifty sheep all apparently able to successfully digest the 
bamboo-grass. 

Japan is a large importer of foodstuffs, its necessities in 
any given year depending on the home rice crop, and such 
imports exceed in some years a total value of ,£5,000,000. 

As bearing on the question of the increased consumption 
of what are still luxuries in Japan, the following exceptional 



THE JAPANESE 301 

items will illustrate the general tendency and confirm the reports 
of travellers through the rural districts, who have noted the 
improvement in the mode of living. Comparing 1900 with 
1896, in millions of pounds' weight, the imports of sugar rose 
from 300 to 510 (but even at the higher figure the average 
Japanese only consumes as much sugar per week as the 
Britisher does per day) ; of flour (mostly from the United 
States) from 32 to 112, and of salt-fish from Russian Asia 
from under 7 to over 58, while 95,000,000 eggs were imported 
from China against 32,000,000 ; and the imports of condensed 
milk, which comes from Great Britain, rose from 82,000 to 
300,000 dozen tins. Perhaps the latter item is not the least 
important, if it is tending to the abandonment of the custom 
of keeping infants at the breast up to the age of four, or even 
later. 

We saw one little urchin playing about in the road, who 
was certainly over five years of age, and was moreover con- 
sidered old enough to take care of himself out-of-doors, but 
who had not yet been weaned. Children generally have 
their little heads covered with scurf, caused, it is believed, 
by this prolonged nursing. This disorder, combined with 
running noses that only make acquaintance late in life, if at 
all, with the piece of paper which takes the place of a hand- 
kerchief, somewhat diminishes the attractiveness of the little 
ones, and makes the exceptions, who are both healthy and 
clean, particularly prepossessing. 

We noticed in Japan an abnormal number of people who 
had lost one or both eyes. This misfortune was in some 
cases due to smallpox, but more frequently to the custom of 
carrying infants on the back in close proximity to the pro- 
jecting hairpins, which ornament the mother's or sister's head, 
but are a constant danger to the child. 

Most of that which has been written about the Japanese 
people is only applicable to the highly important, but 
numerically small, official caste, and it by no means conveys 
a correct impression of the habits or manners of the great 
mass of the people. The latter are generally most unjustly 
treated by foreign writers, who seem to be continually com- 



302 THE JAPANESE 

paring them in their own minds to barbarians, while they 
point with admiration to their ancient civilisation. Why 
should it be a matter of surprise that a race singularly free 
from foreign admixture, with a dynasty and civilisation con- 
tinuous for twenty-five hundred years, should be cleanly, po- 
lite, moral, honest, truthful, patriotic, artistic, and adaptive ? 
You don't expect these qualities in the Yuma Indians, and you 
don't find them. But these writers evidently were surprised 
to find them in the Japanese, and at once began to magnify 
them, until it is only in comparison with uncivilised races 
that the Japanese are entitled to the eulogiums bestowed 
upon their habits, customs, and characteristics. 

For the mass of the people are not as cleanly in their 
habits as the Dutch, nor as polite as the Germans, nor as 
moral as the Scotch, nor as honest as the Welsh, nor as truth- 
ful as the Portuguese. And it may be doubted if they are 
more patriotic than the English, more artistic than the 
French, or more adaptive than the Americans. That they 
do not always compare favourably in these and in many 
other points with European nationalities, is not altogether 
surprising. 

The Japanese people may be divided roughly into two 
classes. There is first the governing or official class, drawn 
almost exclusively from the former feudal chiefs {daimyo)^ 
and nobles (huge)^ and their men-at-arms (samurai), aggre- 
gating, with their families and a few rich merchants who 
have attained social or political eminence, about five per 
cent of the population. Between these and the great bulk 
of the people there is practically no middle class, unless the 
shop- and inn-keepers who cater to the European visitors and 
residents, and who have educational opportunities above the 
average, can be considered sufficiently numerous to form such 
a class. 

The whole population is officially enumerated under three 
classes, — the kwazohu (nobles), sMzoku (samurai'), and heimin 
(common people). The first two form the official class, and 
under the present constitutional government the great offices 
of state are practically monopolised by the noble families, 



THE JAPANESE 303 

while minor officials, the police, and the officers of the navy 
and army are recruited from the samurai. 

Before the present Emperor came to the throne, the sons 
of samurai were the only ones who received a higher educa- 
tion ; and while Japan now has a public school system far 
superior to that of England, it is estimated that the parents 
of twenty per cent of the children of school age are unable 
to pay the annual fees of one yen (two shillings) ; and an- 
other ten per cent are through poverty obliged to take their 
children from school before the age of ten, in order to set 
them to work. The extreme north of the Main Island and 
the extreme south of Kyiishii are the most illiterate. Since 
1872, when a committee of seventy Japanese were sent to 
study Western civilisation, picked students, of the official class, 
have been annually sent abroad, until there must be in the 
country to-day at least a thousand men with foreign experi- 
ence who are in the government service. And it has become 
less fashionable now to devote a lifetime to the study of 
Chinese literature, although we met some students who had 
no greater ambition. 

But superior education is not the only advantage enjoyed 
by the official class. The common people have never received 
the franchise, and are too poor to attain to it under the pres- 
ent laws. In order to be entitled to vote for a member of 
the Chamber of Deputies, a Japanese must be twenty-five 
years of age, must reside in his district for a year, and must 
pay fifteen yen (thirty shillings) a year direct taxes. The 
total number entitled to the parliamentary franchise is just 
over 500,000 voters. The electors to the city, town, and vil- 
lage councils, who must be residents for two years, but who 
are only required to be direct tax-payers to the amount of 
two yen (four shillings), number nearly 4,200,000. 

Fortunately for the country, the representatives who have 
been elected by this small minority who have the franchise 
have little voice in the government, for under the Con- 
stitution promulgated on the 12th of February, 1890, the 
ministers are responsible only to the Emperor. As the 
Marquis Ito has declared, " The object of the Constitution is 



304 THE JAPANESE 

not party government, and any Cabinet sanctioned by the 
Sovereign must be supported." It is because these ministers 
have been men of broad ideas and enlightened policy, ruling 
a people disciplined to obey, that Japan has had its oppor- 
tunity for advancement, and taken such splendid advantage 
of it. But the government is an oligarchy, and the heads 
of the great southern clans still rule the country. 

It is as difficult to form a correct judgment of the details 
of the home politics of a foreign country as it is to appreciate 
the music of an orchestra when you can only hear the beating 
of the bass drum. But when the press, which may be likened 
to the bass drum, is as unreliable as it is in Japan, the difficulty 
is all the greater. 

The Japanese Parliament, like the French and the Spanish, 
is split up into a number of groups, or parties (to) whose 
allegiance is not to principles but to certain leaders. Of 
these leaders the greatest are Marquis Ito and Count Inouye, 
the heads of the " clan " parties, or Conservatives, who have 
governed from time to time with various combinations of 
groups. Of these groups one of the oldest, the Reformist 
(Jcaishin-to'), was founded by Count Okuma, and has become 
merged in the True Constitutional Party (kensei-hon-to'), 
while the Liberal, Radical, and Socialistic groups are com- 
bined to form the Constitutional Party (Jcensei-to) . Then 
there is the Imperialist Party (teikoko-to), and other smaller 
groups. Ask a Japanese his politics, and he will probably 
tell you he is a follower of Marquis Ito, Count Matsugata, 
Count Okuma, Marquis Saigo, Count Inouye, or Marquis 
Oyama. 

The motive which actuates all these groups alike is to oust 
the cabinet in power and put in their own leaders ; obstruc- 
tion and agitation are the means employed. The groups do 
not represent principles, nor are given principles confined to 
certain groups. The average deputy is ignorant of the first 
principles of political economy ; and the wildest schemes are 
proposed and discussed. The majority are undisguised 
office-seekers ; and the press is full of open charges of their 
corruption. "With so difficult a chamber to deal with, it is 



THE JAPANESE 305 

not surprising that the average tenure of a cabinet is not 
over twenty months. 

The cabinets have heretofore been favourably disposed to 
foreign residents ; but the majority of the chamber is rabidly 
anti-foreign, and in this they undoubtedly represent the mass 
of the people. The children are taught in school that the 
Japanese nation is the first in the world in valour, vigour, 
and virtue. The arrogance of the students is but the out- 
ward sign of the hereditary hatred of the foreigner and the 
conviction of superiority which are as deep-seated with the 
Japanese masses as with the Chinese. And the Japanese 
merchants look with jealous eyes on the large proportion of 
the foreign trade of the country still carried on by foreigners. 
Interest as well as sentiment is therefore at the back of the 
shibboleth "Japan for the Japanese." The treaties which 
went into effect in the summer of 1899 permit means to be 
taken which would have the tendency to quietly squeeze the 
foreigners out. In spite of the evident desire of the govern- 
ment to avoid friction, the ignorance and officiousness of 
underlings created the first difficulties ; but these were soon 
smoothed over. The Imperial rescript and the composition 
of the cabinet reassured the foreign merchants. But the 
rescript will be forgotten, abuses will creep in, and under a 
different cabinet the Japanese merchants may endeavour to 
have their foreign rivals driven out, as they wished to do in 
1888 ; and there will be at hand legal methods of making the 
position of the foreign merchants untenable. Already there 
have been disputes between the foreign residents and the 
government over leasehold titles to property and over the 
house tax. The first question was amicably settled; but 
the latter caused a great deal of friction, and the government 
was obliged to distrain upon the property of the foreign mer- 
chants in order to collect the tax. Having vindicated the 
law, the government has submitted to arbitration the question 
whether the house tax is leviable upon buildings standing 
on land held by foreigners under perpetual leases, and has 
meanwhile deferred further levies of the tax. 

In 1887 about one-tenth of Japan's foreign trade was done 



306 THE JAPANESE 

by Japanese mercliants ; and this proportion had increased to 
three-eighths of the whole in 1897, since which year it has 
not materially increased. Under thirty per cent of the trade 
with Europe is in the hands of Japanese merchants ; but they 
have monopolised the Japanese trade with Korea, and do 
over half of the Japanese trade with Russian Asia, and the 
Dutch East Indies. Of Japan's trade with the United States, 
Japanese merchants transact about forty -three per cent, and 
this was about the percentage of the foreign trade with all 
countries outside of Europe which was in their hands in the 
year 1900. In one year the number of foreign houses, other 
than Chinese, located in Yokohama fell from 303 to 248 ; and 
the United States Consular Reports for August, 1901, con- 
tained the following, " The number of foreigners doing busi- 
ness in Japan is steadily diminishing, and their position 
there is becoming more and more difficult." 

Since the greatest Italian leaders in the decade ending 
in 1870 supported the cry "/won i harhari^'"' many European 
countries have adopted a similar policy ; but in driving out 
the foreign merchants Japan would be pursuing a course lead- 
ing straight to financial disaster, as her own merchants have 
neither the capital nor the credit necessary to transact the 
business. 

In this connection, the dishonesty of the Japanese com- 
mercial classes is notorious. I do not refer to the extortions 
of shopkeepers, for that is only playing the game as it is 
understood throughout the East. The seller asks the price 
which he thinks the ignorance, wealth, haste, or necessity of 
the purchaser will induce him to pay. To meet these tactics, 
Nagura does not wear a mustache when engaged in com- 
mission business ; and when he goes to buy goods discards 
his European clothes, puts on his oldest kimono, and appears 
as humble as possible. If you have knowledge of the value 
of the articles you wish to buy, and time to bargain, you will 
easily manage to purchase at fair prices. You will want to 
examine everything carefully, and accept no representations 
in regard to the age or authenticity of any article. Caveat 
emptor. If you cannot rely upon your own judgment as to 



THE JAPANESE 307 

antiques, yon had better make yonr pnrchases in London, 
where they are just as cheap as in Japan, for the Japanese 
have reduced counterfeiting to a fine art, and even their own 
experts are unable to distinguish the spurious swords and 
porcelains from the genuine. One of the biggest retail silk 
houses in Kj^oto embroidered a piece of silk about twenty 
yards long ; and the purchaser upon examination found that 
some of the interior folds had not been embroidered at all. 

But these are trivial matters which are not peculiar to 
Japan. Nor is it important to travelling foreigners that the 
low salaries paid to large classes of public servants expose 
them to temptations which are not always resisted, or that 
in the capital, as well as in places far removed from it, official 
corruption is rampant. Still less does it matter to those who 
can check it, that the change given at the ticket-offices of 
even the government railways is more often wrong than 
right; for the Japanese are poor calculators, and we have 
been overpaid as well as underpaid. 

But what is of paramount importance is the practical 
impossibility of holding a Japanese merchant to his contracts, 
and the organised dishonesty which makes it difficult to 
carry on business with them except upon a cash basis. Every 
merchant of long standing in Japan can show you files of 
contracts unfulfilled. " Why don't you take steps to enforce 
them ? " I asked. " Because," answered one of the oldest 
resident foreign merchants, " we are afraid to. The fact is, 
a difference of five per cent will cause a Japanese to make 
efforts to get out of a contract, and ten per cent will insure 
the default of most of them. Of course there are the courts ; 
but while I admit they may be honest, they are undoubtedly 
biassed, and the judges are incapable of understanding intri- 
cate commercial cases, or of deciding contrary to local preju- 
dices. But even if I get a judgment, it is very difficult to 
enforce it, and fraudulent bankruptcy frequently follows if I 
try to. And if in the end I get my money, I am exposed to 
the danger of being boycotted by the other Japanese mer- 
chants. As a result, the foreign merchant has become a 
speculator, buying goods for cash-on-delivery in his go-down, 



308 THE JAPANESE 

when he doesn't want them, and selling in the like manner 
goods he has imported on consignment or speculation. The 
foreign merchants are such keen competitors, among them- 
selves, that they have never successfully combined to resist 
the dishonest tactics of the Japanese merchants, who do com- 
bine ; and our only consolation is that the officials at Tokyo 
are aware of the latter's untrustworthiness, and consequent 
inability to carry on the foreign trade of the country." 

The Civil Code of Japan, which came into operation in 1898, 
did not improve matters. Article 557 provides : " When 
bargain money is given by the buyer to the seller, so long as 
performance by one of the parties has not commenced, the 
contract may be cancelled by the buyer by the relinquish- 
ment of the bargain money, and by the seller by the payment 
of twice the amount of the bargain money." A slender 
basis for commercial contracts relating to such fluctuating 
commodities as silk and tea, for example. 

John Chinaman, at any rate, has learnt the commercial 
value of honesty ; and foreign merchants and foreign banks, 
in Japan itself, employ Chinese clerks in positions of trust 
for which Japanese are seldom or never engaged. Chinese 
are also preferred, because they are good at arithmetic, while 
the addition of two numbers whose sum exceeds ten is a 
matter of difficulty to most Japanese, and multiplication of 
eleven by eleven a good hour's work. It is further alleged 
that the Japanese entirely lack the faculty of precise and 
logical reasoning ; but they have splendid memories, and 
there is, therefore, no excuse for their ignorance of the multi- 
plication tables ; and at the primary schools the scholars 
should be made to learn them, and should there be taught to 
understand that "honesty is the best policy." 

To return to more personal matters, I must bear testimony 
to the honesty of inn servants, and the fact that not a single 
case of pilfering came under my notice during my whole 
visit. Japan's apologists account for the absence of com- 
mercial probity by reason of the low social position of shop- 
keepers and traders, forgetting that they occupied no better 
position in England some twenty years ago, when the preju- 



THE JAPANESE 309 

dice against shop-keepers was stronger than it is now, and 
Society was scandalised when a member of an old family 
went into trade. 

No more than other Asiatic nations have the Japanese been 
"nursed in the faith that truth alone is strong," and we met 
with " some remarkably ingenious and painstaking evasions 
of veracity." We even found the prototype of Policeman 
Peter Forth of the " Bab Ballads." 

" If ever you by word of mouth 
Inquired of Mister Forth 
The way to somewhere in the South, 
He always sent you north." 

And the habit runs through the everyday life of the people 
of saying that which it is thought the one addressed would 
like to find true, instead of stating the actual facts. All this 
is annoying, but it becomes a serious matter in business, when 
misrepresentation for the sake of profit takes the place of 
more venial untruthfulness. How lenient a view the law 
takes may be illustrated by another article. No. 84, of the 
new Civil Code which provides that directors of companies 
"shall be subjected to a fine of not less than five and not 
more than two hundred yen" (10s. to £20) "if a false 
statement is made to the proper authorities, or to a general 
meeting, or if facts are suppressed." 



CHAPTER XXVII 

JAPANESE WOMEN 

" The Social Evil." Modern Japan and Ancient Greece. The Laws 
evaded. Women as Chattels. Divorces. Family Life. The Only- 
Hope. Ideals. Marriages and Births. Suicides. Crime. Police. 

The " social evil " does not force itself upon the notice of 
travellers in Japan, as it does upon visitors to European 
cities ; and it is not surprising that many ladies have formed 
the opinion that the immorality of the Japanese has been 
grossly exaggerated. 

Most European men who go to Tokyo are familiar with the 
Yoshiwara, and some European ladies have been to see it. 
An hour's drive from the hotel brings you to its gates, and a 
couple of hours' stroll through its crowded streets will suffice 
to gather a clear idea of the externals of this peculiar insti- 
tution. With the exception of a few of the best joroya, 
where the public exhibition of the inmates has been aban- 
doned, each house has a show-window similar to those of the 
great shops in European cities. The side open to the street 
has perpendicular bars of iron, or wood, about six inches 
apart, and in a few the spaces between the bars are filled with 
panes of glass. At the back is a screen, varying in splen- 
dour according to the means of the house, but generally blaz- 
ing with gilt and sometimes made of valuable gold-lacquer. 
In front of the screen the inmates sit, or kneel, on little 
cushions, with tiny lacquer tables before them, engaged gen- 
erally in smoking, but at times applying a finishing touch to 
the lavish make-up with which their faces are covered. As 
far as can be seen through this mask of cosmetics, some few 
of these girls are rather pretty, but the majority are simply 

310 



JAPANESE WOMEN 311 

plain, if not ugly. In the better class of houses the costumes 
of the joro are of a richness and brilliancy seen nowhere else 
in Japan, except at the theatres, and strongly contrasting 
with the dull neutral tints seen elsewhere. In this gorgeous 
array they sit absorbed in their trivial occupations with 
apparent indifference to the inspections of the passers-by, or 
as to whether a favourable eye will rest on one of them and 
lead to her being called from the show-window to the interior. 
In the more democratic houses the girls will throng to the 
front, solicit the promenaders, and indulge in coarse jests and 
ribald conversation with them. 

Although one sees children brought as visitors to the 
Yoshiwara, and it is said to be a " favourite promenade " for 
respectable women, I doubt if decent Japanese women come 
very often, as the joro suspect such as do come there to be 
looking for missing husbands or lovers ; and they are apt to 
show their resentment, for what they imagine may be un- 
licensed and unfair competition, by shouting insulting 
remarks. Nor will these remarks necessarily be in Japanese, 
for some of the joro have a sufficient smattering of a European 
tongue, usually English, and those who have the greatest 
command of the language may astonish you with the informa- 
tion that they acquired it at a missionary school. 

If some of the lady missionaries, whose efforts have been 
directed to teaching English to Japanese girls of the poorer 
classes. Would interview the English-speaking inmates of the 
Yoshiwara of Tokyo and the eho of other big cities, they 
would either discover many scholars from the missionary 
schools, or would find out why the joro represent themselves 
as having received instructions there. This is no reflection 
on the missionaries, as it is impossible for them to fathom 
the reasons which may induce the sending of a girl to their 
schools ; but similar results followed the founding of a girl's 
school in Siam, where, owing to the habits of cleanliness 
taught by Europeans, and the consequent freedom of the 
girls from certain diseases, they were eagerly sought for by 
rich men as mistresses. One joro^ living in Yokohama under 
a three years' agreement, told me that she had learned, at 



312 JAPANESE WOMEN 

the same school where she had acquired her English, of the 
better treatment of women in Europe, and the superior 
position they occupy in their relations with men, so that her 
ambition was not to marry a rich Japanese, but to become 
the mistress of a rich European. 

The hetaerae and pornae of ancient Greece occupied similar 
positions in the social organism to those of the geisha and 
joro (ov joro) in modern Japan. The Greeks looked upon 
marriage " merely as a means of producing citizens for the 
state. The education of women was entirely neglected, they 
were thought a kind of inferior beings, less endowed by 
nature, and incapable of taking any part in public affairs 
and of sympathising with their husbands. In an intellectual 
point of view, therefore, they were not fit to be agreeable 
companions to their husbands, who consequently sought 
elsewhere that which they did not find at home. . . . Those 
pornae who were kept at Athens in public brothels were 
generally slaves belonging to the brothel-keepers, who com- 
pelled them to prostitute their persons for the purpose of 
enriching themselves. But to return to the hetaerae, the 
state not only tolerated, but protected them, and obtained 
profit from them. They were, however, generally not mere 
prostitutes, but acted at the same time as flute or cithara 
players and as dancers. . . . Their places of abode were chiefly 
in the Cerameicus." So says Dr. Smith in his "Antiqui- 
ties," and so he might have written about modern Japan, 
except that the joro, who is no longer in law a slave, is the 
one whose earnings are a source of profit to the licensing 
authorities. 

What these earnings are may be judged by the established 
tariff of the various houses {joroya^ in the fashionable Shin- 
Yoshiwara of Tokyd. This ranges from thirty sen (seven 
and a half pence) in the poorer joroya to three yen (six 
shillings) in the best ones. Half of the joro's earnings go 
for board, fifteen per cent toward paying off the loan to her 
father, husband, or guardian, for which she is the pledge ; 
seven per cent is estimated for taxes, and out of the remain- 
ing twenty-eight per cent expensive clothes and various 



JAPANESE WOMEN 313 

luxuries must be bought. In the old days the girls were 
sold outright at a tender age to be brought up to their 
" profession." 

In 1872 they were emancipated, and a system of mortgag- 
ing them instituted, which accomplishes the same ends as the 
previous slavery. Until the debt is paid, they may never 
leave the prostitute quarters. A death or other important 
family event may procure a few days' leave. An unsatisfac- 
tovj report from the doctor by whom she is examined weekly 
at the police station, may lead to her seclusion in the Lock 
Hospital. Serious illness of any kind may cause her to be 
sent to the general hospital. But with these exceptions, 
nothing but money or death accomplishes a release. Some 
few are freed by rich lovers, some manage to save enough 
from the rapacity of the brothel-keepers to free themselves, 
but more obtain release by suicide, which most frequently 
takes the form of josM or shinju, the double suicide of the 
joro and the financially ruined lover. 

The keepers are bound by various stringent regulations, 
most of which they habitually transgress. They must not 
solicit passers-by, but many of them do so nightly. They 
must not tip jinrikisha men, but most of them do. They 
must not advertise, but their cards are to be found in the 
sitting rooms of the leading hotels. Here is one distributed 
broadcast in Yokohama : — 

Nectarine 

No. 9. 
It having come to my notice that a great many people 
have lately imitated the sign of my house, I would advise 
foreigners coming to Yokohama to be careful that their 
Jinrikisha take them to the right place, as it is the only 
first-class house in Japan. 

Be sure you are taken to 

JiMPURO 

Always ask for the Nectarine No. 9. 
Yeirakucho, Itchome, Yokohama. 

There is another " No. 9 " at Kanagawa, where the foreign 
settlement was situated before it was removed to its present 



314 JAPANESE WOMEN 

site, in 1859. Perhaps it is well to warn ladies who accept, 
and carry, fans with the advertisement of No. 9 printed on 
them, that they are proclaiming the attractions of the most 
notorious brothel in Japan. 

The laws protecting the joro are equally violated or 
evaded, and they are cheated and swindled without end. 
The minimum age at which girls are licensed as joro is fixed 
at fifteen years, a limit which is certainly not strictly held 
to. The keepers' profits are enlarged in another direction 
by the sale of food, drink, and tobacco to his clients ; and 
each client is expected to spend on these luxuries and on tips 
to the servants at least twice as much as goes to the^oro. In 
the joroT/a frequented by Europeans an additional charge is 
exacted for a room furnished in European style; and the 
tariff for the same joro who may be visited in a Japanese 
room for three yen might be, if seen in the European room, 
as much as ten yen. In some cases young women let them- 
selves out to joroya for a period which, by law, is limited to 
three years. Starting without any debt to work off, such of 
these as remain out of debt occupy a better position than 
their more unfortunate sisters. Every city has its prostitute 
quarter (cAo), and what is called in T5ky5 the Yoshiwara, 
may be known in other towns as yiijoha or huruwa, or by 
some name indicative of its locality. The joro is also called 
yujo or asohime; and is known by a score of euphemisms. 

The great objection to this system of state regulation of 
prostitution is that it does not seem in any way to diminish 
the number outside its scope, except in the street-walking 
class. It is true that there are laws against secret prostitu- 
tion, and trivial penalties for their infringement ; but almost 
every district has its local name for secret prostitutes rang- 
ing from gohe (widow) and Jcusa-moehi (rice-bread), to jigohu- 
onna (hell-woman) ; and almost every inn has its mesM-mori, 
who are prostitutes as well as servants. The secrecy only 
means that they are unlicensed, and so escape taxation. In 
other respects there is not only no secrecy but no conceal- 
ment and nothing surreptitious. The liberties you may be 
permitted to take with even a mesM-mori are limited to the 



JAPANESE WOMEN 315 

caresses whicli may be prompted by the half-disclosed bosom 
in the loosely folded kimono, unless, or until, an arrangement 
has been come to with the proprietor of the inn, who is en- 
titled to appropriate whatever remuneration is given for the 
services of his domestics. 

In fact the whole fabric of the social organism is built 
upon the theory that Avoman is a chattel to be disposed of at 
the pleasure of her father when she is single, her husband 
when she is married, or her son when she is widowed ; and 
obedience to these, her owners, is the first duty she is taught, 
and one she is never allowed to forget. The actual sale of 
children is now forbidden by law ; but women and girls may 
be " apprenticed " for a term of ten years, or let out for other 
labour services for five years, so that the improvement in 
their position is more apparent than real. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is ridiculous to talk of the morality or immoral- 
ity, from the Western point of view, of Japanese women. 
They are what they are made to be, not what they wish to 
be ; and they are educated to believe that it is praiseworthy 
to sacrifice their chastity to their duty, and reprehensible to 
sacrifice it to their affections, as in the latter case their owner 
is defrauded of a valuable asset or robbed of his rightful 
dues. It may be that " Japanese ladies are every whit as 
chaste as their Western sisters," if by " ladies " is meant 
the wives of rich shizoku (^samurai, or gentlemen). But sup- 
pose the husband is poor, or pressed with debts, what pro- 
tection has the wife against the husband's necessities ? None ; 
not even the force of public opinion. 

Nor has the wife any compensating advantages. Up to 
her marriage, the girl's life has probably been as happy as it 
would be in any other country, and as a child has perhaps 
been happier than in some European countries. At sixteen 
she discards the scarlet petticoat and coiffure of the maiden, 
is married, and becomes her husband's housekeeper and the 
slave of her mother-in-law. She begins a life of drudgery 
that makes her an old woman at thirty or thirty -five, and her 
only hope of any reward in life lies in her having sons who 
will marry and place her in the envied position of mother-in- 



316 JAPANESE WOMEN 

law. To complete her humiliation, her husband may keep 
under the marital roof as many concubines (mehake) as he 
likes; and society only expresses its disapproval if this 
number is beyond the husband's means. 

Divorces are granted for the most trivial causes ; but soci- 
ety frowns at the woman who divorces her husband, and the 
law gives the children to the husband whether he or the wife 
gets the divorce. During the five years ending 1898, the 
average number of divorces to marriages was as 10 to 37. 
In 1898 the number of divorces was abnormally low, being 
99,464 against 124,075 the previous year, yet this compares 
with 9050 granted the same year in France, where divorces 
are not difficult to obtain. In England the petitions for 
divorces and judicial separation number about 700 a year. 
It is said that divorces are comparatively rare among the 
upper classes, and this is not to be wondered at, since there 
is generally no motive to prompt the husband to seek for a 
divorce, if his means permit him to keep concubines as well 
as a wife. 

The family life of all but the highest classes is open to 
the traveller's observation ; and it may be noted that, among 
the peasantry, common labours in the fields make for greater 
equality, and that the peasant's wife is relatively more inde- 
pendent than the tradesman's, while in the silk-growing 
districts, where the women conduct the most important pro- 
cesses, they have attained a still greater degree of emancipa- 
tion. But the family life of the highest classes is by no means 
so open, and one must turn to the lady teachers and missiona- 
ries, or to the husbands of Japanese ladies, for information. 
The former have endeavoured to educate the daughters of 
noble (kwazoTcu) and gentle (sMzohu) families to a higher ideal 
of matrimony, with the result, as one of them confesses, 
that " the young girl who has finished this pleasant school 
life, is not so well fitted as under the old system for the 
duties and trials of married life." If a Japanese gentleman 
invites his male friends to dine with him, it will be most 
probably at some inn. Should he give a dinner at his own 
house, the wife may make an appearance to salute the guests ; 



JAPANESE WOMEN 317 

but she does not eat with her lord on these occasions, or when 
there is no company, but superintends the household, and 
sees that his wants are properly supplied. The Japanese 
lady has no male friends or even acquaintances ; her lord 
will not permit of any, and society forbids. Should the sM- 
zoku ask his European friend where he would prefer to dine, 
and should the European express the desire to dine at the 
shizokus own house, the latter will be very likely to put him 
off, or if quite frank, may say, " Our domestic arrangements 
are such as would require much explanation, and such as 
would jar with your preconceived notions ; furthermore, I 
do not wish my wife to acquire European ideas, and there- 
fore it will be pleasanter for both of us if we dine, let us say, 
at the Maple Club, where I can invite other gentlemen to 
meet you, and we can all be entertained by the most accom- 
plished maiko and geisha." 

The only hope for a change in the position of Japanese 
women is in the education, not of the women, for that might 
only lead to fewer marriages and a larger proportion of 
unhappy ones, but of the Japanese men ; yet it is difficult to 
see how they will be induced to forego their present advan- 
tages, or to give up their ideal of womanhood. Their ideal 
is much more ancient than ours; and the results of their 
social system cannot be entirely bad, if Mrs. Hugh Eraser's 
delineation of the character of a Japanese lady can be applied 
to the women of every class. She says, in " A Diplomatist's 
Wife in Japan," " In real womanliness, which I take to mean 
a high combination of sense and sweetness, valour and humil- 
ity, the Japanese lady ranks with any woman in the world, 
and passes before most of them." 

Professor Chamberlain, the author of " Things Japanese," 
says that " Japanese women are most womanly — kind, gentle, 
faithful " ; and he expresses a doubt whether it is " because 
or in spite of the disadvantages of their position." Mr. 
Henry Norman has also fallen under the spell, as the follow- 
ing quotations from " The Real Japan " will show. " The 
Japanese woman is ths crown of the charm of Japan," which 
is " fascinating at first sight, and grows only more pleasing 



318 JAPANESE WOMEN 

on acquaintance." He finds "a charm that tlie world can- 
not surpass," and says, "prettiness is the rule among Japa- 
nese women." He asserts that "the wife is faithful to a 
fault, and adultery on her part is almost unknown," but he 
points out that " the love which comes of a perfect intimacy 
of mutual knowledge and common aspirations, there can 
rarely be." 

The imagination of the Middle Ages created for us " an 
ideal of feminine sweetness, purity, and moral beauty infi- 
nitely surpassing that of the ancient world, and which the 
modern world may count as its noblest possession." So says 
Bryce in "' The American Commonwealth," and he begins 
another chapter with the words, " It has been well said that 
the position which women hold in a country is, if not a com- 
plete test, yet one of the best tests of the progress it has 
made in civilisation." Judged by this standard, Japan has 
not advanced very far ; nor is she likely to advance very fast 
in the near future. Western ideas on the subject of women 
have obtained some slight foothold in a limited official circle; 
but, on the other hand, there have been notable converts to 
the Japanese view and mode of life. 

Lafcadio Hearn, the writer of some of the most charming 
literature about Japan, who has married a Japanese lady, 
and become so habituated to Japanese customs that he seems 
ill at ease in European clothes and uncomfortable on a chair, 
speaks thus "of the ideal of the Eternal Feminine. For in 
this ancient East the Eternal Feminine does not exist at all. 
And after having become quite accustomed to live without 
it, one may naturally conclude that it is not absolutely essen- 
tial to intellectual health, and may even dare to question the 
necessity for its perpetual existence upon the other side of 
the world." 

In spite of easy divorces, the annual marriage rate in 
Japan is very low ; being about 10 per 1000 of the popula- 
tion against 16| per 1000 in England and Wales. The 
birth-rate, on the contrary, is higher in Japan, being, exclu- 
sive of still-born, about 31 per 1000 as against about 29. 
But the number and proportion of illegitimate children in- 



JAPANESE WOMEN 319 

creases year by year, and was, in 1898, 107,716; being nearly 
eight per cent of the total born alive, against about 50,000, 
or four per cent, in the United Kingdom. The proportion 
of "still-births" is so great as to suggest that the Chinese 
custom of infanticide is not unknown in Japan. At any 
rate, the still-born infants numbered over 125,000 in 1898, 
whereas the number in France during the same year was 
under 40,000. 

The suicide rate is double that in Great Britain, and the 
number of suicides is on the increase. Of 8793 suicides in 
1898, five-eighths were males and three-eighths females, and 
" strangulation " was the method in 4902 cases, and " sub- 
mersion " in 2630 cases. The double suicide (^joshi) of 
lovers, which, when it occurs, is usually due to illegitimate 
relationships, accounts for only a small proportion of the 
total. 

The decrease in the number of criminals annually con- 
demned by the courts may point to a decrease in crime, or 
greater laxity in the administration of justice; but the 
number of homicides is about 1000 a year, and this varies 
but little. Fully a quarter of the inmates of the prisons are 
offenders against the gambling laws. Drunkenness is un- 
common, and it was only in Toky5 that we saw any intoxica- 
tion. The national drink, sake^ is taken in very small, if 
often repeated, quantities; and it is not much stronger in 
alcohol than claret. The most common visible effect of 
liberal potations of it is upon the skin, which it turns, for the 
time being, to a bright red. 

Throughout Japan a foreigner is not only as safe as in 
London, but he has the feeling of being safe. This feeling 
is, no doubt, due to the excellently trained and efficient 
police force, of over 30,000 men, which keeps order and lends 
all proper assistance when called upon. The Japanese 
policeman, in his dealings with the people, has the advantage 
of representing a higher caste as well as the highest author- 
ity. The common people in the old days had no rights ; 
and while they are now very tenacious of such as they 
believe they enjoy, they are too ignorant to grasp the 



320 JAPANESE WOMEN 

meaning of the changes in the laws, or too timid to make 
effective protest against the action of the policeman who 
infringes them. The right of domiciliary search is not put 
by law into the policeman's hands ; but he continually 
usurps it, and meets with no protest. On the other hand, 
the policeman is never disposed, even when appealed to, to 
enforce the " rules of the road," the regulation of vehicular 
traffic being a matter beneath his dignity. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

JAPANESE TRAITS 

Patriotism. Pride of Race. National Vanity. Cleanliness. Native 
and European Dress. Dirty Houses. Politeness. The Japanese 
Smile. The Peasantry. 

The Japanese people possess the rudimentary virtues of 
patriotism and obedience to a marked degree. Their religion, 
or the codes of ethics that take the place of it, places before 
all other duties that of obedience and loyalty to the Emperor. 
This is the most sacred of all duties, and the Emperor is 
entitled to the unquestioning obedience of his subjects as 
pope as well as monarch. Obedience to one's superiors comes 
next, and to the head of the family after. The Chinese 
reverse the order, and place the duty to one's parents first. 
In both countries the family, and not the individual, is the 
recognised unit. 

The patriotism of the Japanese lacks the American element 
of pride in the political institutions of the country; but on 
the other hand it fosters that individual hatred of the sup- 
posed enemies of the fatherland which has led to the deplorable 
assassination of ministers, whose policy has been unpopular, 
and to such attempts as those on the lives of the then 
Czarewitch in 1891, and on Li Hung-chang in 1895. 

The most characteristic expression of the patriotism of the 
Japanese is their pride of race and their national vanity. 
The British pride of race is tempered by a minority who 
indulge in self-depreciation and criticism. The Japanese 
sentiment is universal, and entertains no doubts. And there 
is this to be said in their favour, that no nation approaching 
in numbers to the Japanese is so homogeneous or so free 
from foreign admixture. Furthermore, the nation which 
T 321 



322 JAPANESE TRAITS 

has arrived at a state of civilisation claiming to have been 
developed through a period of over twenty-five centuries, 
and which had a code of laws published no less than twelve 
centuries ago, has some legitimate reason for pride. 

The national vanity of the Americans, which has survived 
the satire of generations of home and foreign writers, finds 
expression to-day in well-grounded satisfaction with the 
material progress of the country. The Japanese have all of 
this ; but they have not yet passed through the elementary 
stage of self-confidence which leads them to believe that 
they have arrived at the point when they have the ability 
to "lick creation." And this belief has been fostered by 
foreigners, whose surprise at the advances already made by 
Japan has influenced them to form exaggerated estimates 
for her immediate future. An example of the lengths to 
which this national vanity will carry the Japanese occurred 
in the course of a conversation with a Japanese official, who 
suddenly asked, a propos des hottes, " Don't you think Japan 
is destined to rule the whole of Asia ? " With an outward 
show of great seriousness the question was answered by 
another, "Why be satisfied with Asia?" and the official 
replied, " Asia first, more will follow ! " 

The cleanliness of a people in person, clothes, and house- 
hold, their artistic instincts in matters relating to everyday 
life, and their courtesy to each other and to strangers are 
matters of great importance to the comfort of travellers, 
and the Japanese have been credited with the possession of 
those pleasing attributes to a superlative degree. 

" Perfect cleanliness of person and surroundings is as much 
an accompaniment of poverty as of riches," says Miss Scid- 
more. Another enthusiast says, " They are the cleanest people 
in the world " and " superior to all other countries in cleanli- 
ness and in the sincere appreciation of art and nature " ; but 
admits a superstition against the use of soap. Hearn finds 
the house mats " soft as a hair mattress, and always im- 
maculately clean." 

In cleanliness of person the common people of Japan 
surpass any other nation. But it is the cleanliness of the 



JAPANESE TRAITS 323 

Russian who washes his skin and wears his dirty clothes. 
The Portuguese adopt another method which dispenses with 
frequent baths but insists upon even the poorest wearing 
linen, next to the skin, and having it washed at least once a 
week. It is the almost universal habit amongst the Japanese 
men of the lower class to take at least one hot bath every 
day. The official and shop-keeping classes are said to be 
content with two baths a week. But it may be doubted if 
the main object of the bath is cleanliness ; for, if it is, the best 
means to attain this end are not generally used. The hot 
bath is taken as a prophylactic and specific quite as much as, 
if not more than, for any other purpose. 

It is usually used after the daily work and before the even- 
ing meal. The oval wooden tub, made like a barrel cut 
in two, has an opening at one end in which is inserted a 
cylindrical stove or pipe to burn charcoal or wood for the 
purpose of heating the water to a temperature of 110° to 
116° F. Although I have never been able to stand a higher 
temperature than 106° when taking hot baths in London, 
I managed to endure 110° in Japan, where I followed 
friendly advice and gave up cold baths for hot ones, and I 
frequently saw the natives get into water that was hotter 
than 116° F. Before getting into the tub the bather pours 
over himself a basin or so of water, and sometimes he has 
a bag of rice bran with which to rub himself down. Still 
more rarely he affords the modern luxury of soap. After 
the preliminary wash he immerses himself to the chin, and 
stews in the hot water for ten or fifteen minutes. When he 
gets out, a towel as big as a handkerchief suffices to dry his 
hands and face ; and he runs about naked until he is dry, or 
he puts on a cotton bath-gown Qyukata) to dry in. 

While the Japanese insist upon the water being hot, they 
are not at all particular about its being clean ; and it is the 
custom for one member of the family after another to bathe 
in the same tabful of water. The male head of the house 
has the first turn, and after all the males have bathed in 
succession the females follow in their order. Even then the 
water is not allowed to run to waste, but is used the next 



324 JAPANESE TEAITS 

morning to wash the woodwork, being preferred for that 
purpose to clean water. With all classes the daily use of 
the yoji^ or tooth-stick, is general. This is a small stick 
shredded into fibres at one end and pointed at the other, 
and is an excellent substitute for, if not an improvement on, 
our tooth-brush. The women habitually wash their necks 
and breasts, but do not bathe as frequently or as regularly 
as the men. They will tell you they are often " too busy " 
to bathe, as they are occupied in the kitchen preparing the 
evening meal when the water is' hot, and too occupied in 
household duties to spare the time to reheat it, or per- 
haps too poor to afford the necessary fuel. At the public 
bath-houses, or at the inns, fifty or more people may use 
the same water ; and many old men prefer not to be 
first to use a bath of clean water, on the ground that it is 
weakening to do so. The Japanese certainly love the 
luxury of a hot bath, and its soothing effects on tired muscles 
and stiff joints, and they believe it to be a protection 
against rheumatism, fevers, and other ills ; but they do not 
seem to so highly value its cleansing properties, as they 
wear no underclothing that is subject to frequent washings ; 
and as work in the paddy-fields is filthy in the extreme, the 
peasant too frequently contaminates his freshly bathed body 
with increasingly dirty clothes. 

Laundresses would fare badly if they depended on the 
Japanese people for a living, for they have little or no 
clothing that goes to the wash. The outer clothes are ap- 
parently seldom or never washed, even when made of such 
material as would make washing easy, and the poor people 
wear few things under the kimono. The cotton waist-cloths 
(JcoshimaM) worn round the body by the women, taking the 
place of chemise and petticoat; the diminutive loin-clotlis 
{shita-obi} and the shirts Q'uban') worn by the men ; or the 
under kimono (^shitagi) worn by the well-to-do of both sexes, 
are not frequently seen in the wash-tub or drying in the 
sun. The same may be said of the tight blue cotton 
breeches (momohiki) worn by the women in the fields, while 
the tiny towels in use require little water or labour to keep 



JAPANESE TRAITS 325 

them clean. So it happens that, in spite of all the bathing, a 
Japanese crowd out-of-doors or under cover is no more agree- 
able to the nose than a similar crowd in any European country. 

Those Japanese gentlemen who have not adopted " the 
foreign trousers" {damhukuro) wear a silk kimono of quiet 
pattern and subdued tint, usually fine stripes in grey, slate, 
or steel-blue. The jacket worn under the kimono (dogi)^ 
and the outer-kimono (uwagi) or overcoat, are equally plain. 
The silk capes (haori), with the wearer's crest in three places, 
and bright-coloured kimono are now only seen in the old 
plays at the theatres. The women of all classes wear plain 
neutral-tinted kimono, and the sash and head-dress alone 
remain of the former brilliancy of costume. The embroid- 
ered kimono which were worn in former times in the houses 
of the nobles ; and the clothing of prostitutes, and of the men 
who play the parts of women on the stage (onna-gata), are 
left to bear testimony to the magnificence of the ancient 
costumes. But even in the old days this could not have 
been general, for sumptuary laws, more severe than those 
of the early Romans, or those of England in the fourteenth 
to sixteenth century, limited the quantity of clothes any 
one might own, and prescribed the material of which they 
must be made. The red petticoats of the little girls are 
the brightest garments worn in the streets to-day ; and on 
the whole, it is the case, whatever it may have been in former 
times, that there is more richness of colour in the clothing 
now worn in the streets of European cities than there is 
in those of Japan. The little maidens, who have a round 
spot about the size of a shilling shaved on the crown of the 
head, change their head-dress as they grow up, and wear 
their hair in a different style for each period of four years 
between the ages of twelve and twenty-eight. 

It should be mentioned that a kimono is always worn in 
Japan with the left side folded over the right, in the manner 
European men button a coat, and never in the way European 
women wear their clothes, with the right side folded or but- 
toned over the left. In Japan the latter method is only 
used when the kimono becomes a shroud. 



326 JAPANESE TRAITS 

All Japanese in the government employ, including police- 
men, soldiers, and sailors, wear European clothes when on 
duty. Others have taken to foreign clothes for reasons of 
fashion, of convenience, or of health, so that it can no longer 
be said that the Japanese are a nation in dressing-gown and 
slippers. On the ground of health the kimono is an ideal 
garment for house-wear in the summer, and may then be 
" the most comfortable, the most dignified, and the most 
healthy in the world." But in winter, when the lightly- 
constructed houses offer little protection against the cold, 
European clothes are warmer. For walking the kimono is 
a hindrance, and the custom is to tuck up the ends in front 
through the girdle (shiri wo hashoru) ; the worker in the 
fields finds its flowing sleeves in the way, and ties them up, 
or more often strips to the waist ; while the artisan, who 
wants both arms and legs free for his work, casts the whole 
thing aside in the summer, and wears nothing but the in- 
decent shita-obi, which, like the fig-leaf, covers, but does not 
conceal. 

Court etiquette necessitates the wearing of a silk hat on 
certain occasions ; but there seems to be no good reason for 
the adoption of the billicock hat for general wear. There 
would have been some excuse for the selection of the Span- 
ish sombrero, or of its offspring, the American slouch hat, 
on the score of comfort, as well as of grace ; but it is hardly 
a proof of artistic instinct or of their "beautiful taste in 
dress," that the Japanese should have selected the very 
ugliest form of European head-gear. The favourite foot- 
wear is the kind of boots or shoes with elastic sides, known 
in England as " Prunellas," or " Jemimas," which are the 
most convenient style, owing to the ease with which they 
can be taken off when entering a house constructed in Jap- 
anese fashion. The European umbrella, with ribs inside, is 
rapidly displacing the more decorative paper umbrella, whose 
ribs are folded outside. T5ky5 students usually wear Eu- 
ropean clothes ; but the smaller samurai schoolboys begin 
to wear the wide silk trousers or divided skirts called haJcama 
at the age of five, and continue to wear them for many years. 



JAPANESE TRAITS 327 

Hearn says of the appearance of tlie Japanese in European 
dress that "there is an indescribably constrained, slouchy, 
shabby look common to all thus attired," and this is un- 
doubtedly true in regard to civilians ; but the policemen in 
their white summer uniforms, with cap and " Havelock," are 
smart and neat, and so are the officers of the army and navy. 
The various objects which used to be carried in or suspended 
to the belt (ohi) with string and toggle (netsuke)^ such as the 
portable ink-and-brush-holder (jjatate)^ the pipe-case, tobacco- 
pouch, and the nest of medicine-boxes (^nro ) ; or those 
carried in the sleeve pocket, such as the perfume box (Jcogo 
or kohaho) and the kwairo^ a " hand-warmer," or little per- 
forated tin box filled with lighted charcoal and covered with 
cloth, have all been discarded or modified to suit foreign 
pockets. The tobacco-pipe (kisero), with its tiny metal 
bowl, has had the stem shortened and flattened ; and it is 
now almost the same length of stem and size of bowl as the 
clay pipes used in England in the time of Elizabeth and of 
Charles I. 

But to get back to the question of cleanliness. While the 
common people, in their soiled clothes, look dirtier than they 
really are, their houses of unpainted wood, which could be 
kept clean with a minimum of effort, are generally more 
dirty than they seem. Outside of the kitchen, which in the 
majority of dwellings becomes obnoxiously foul, the con- 
struction of the houses admits of only one place for the 
accumulation of dirt, and that is under the floor mats. As 
there is no furniture to be moved, and as the mats are not 
fastened down in any way, it would seem to be an easy 
matter to take them up frequently, carry them into the 
open, and keep them clean. In fact, that is what is done by 
Europeans who live in Japanese houses ; but the natives are 
content with taking up the mats once, or at most twice, a 
year, and will tell you that they are too heavy to lift and too 
much trouble to move. 

Nothing in the nature of a human habitation could look 
more spotlessly clean than a new Japanese house, with its 
woodwork unvarnished, its mats unstained, and its paper 



328 JAPANESE TRAITS 

screens unsoiled and uninjured. But in a sliort time the 
mats become filled with dirt and swarm with vermin, the 
woodwork becomes weather-worn and dingy, and the shoji 
papers torn and discoloured. In the country districts this 
is the condition of most of the dwellings. The temples are 
even more neglected ; the images go undusted, fine old lacquer 
is permitted to become encrusted with dirt, and no care is 
taken to preserve the decorations and embellishments. 

But if you want to gauge the Japanese standard of house- 
hold cleanliness, go to the inns and hotels kept by the natives 
in European style {peiyo fu)^ or to the foreign restaurants 
(jseiyo-ryoriya). With a very few notable exceptions, you 
will "discover a dust, disorder, shabbiness, and want of 
care," that is remarkably characteristic. On the point of 
cleanliness in the preparation of food, it is probable that 
no country is free from the suspicion of using means and 
processes which would meet with the disapproval of the fas- 
tidious. But these objectionable methods are not, as a rule, 
forced upon your attention. There is one unsavoury habit 
so common in Japan that you may, in travelling through the 
country, see it continually practised. It would appear that 
the indifference as to whether the water used in bathing, or 
for house-work, is clean or not, extends also to the water 
used for cooking. At any rate, the maids and housewives 
wash the daily rice in any water that comes handy ; and it 
is no uncommon sight to see them do it with the water that 
runs in the open gutters before their houses, " containing all 
the refuse of human and animal life." 

At one inn where we spent the night, I was out for a 
walk before the evening meal, and just ahead of me went one 
of the maids carrying on her head a rice-tub, to wash its 
contents at the village well. She splashed bare-footed and 
bare-legged through the miry lane, full of indescribable filth 
and emitting diverse effluvia, and I followed her to the well, 
where there was a gathering of inn-servants with rice-tubs. 
As each one arrived, she poured some water over the rice, 
and proceeded to stir it about with her feet, washing the filth 
from the latter in the process. I ate no rice that evening. 



JAPANESE TRAITS 329 

Pierre Loti relates that the only souvenir of a disinterested 
action which he recalls after a six months' stay in Japan was 
that of the boy to whom he had given some coppers in the 
morning, who waited for his return in the afternoon in order 
to give him some wild flowers. My experience was similar. 
I only once witnessed or experienced that politeness which, 
prompted by kindness of heart or even by gratitude, consists 
in "a desire to please others by anticipating their wants 
and wishes," without an expectation of reward. It was at 
the theatre, where we had made room in our box for a very 
small boy who was unduly crowded in the adjoining box 
with his grandmother. When the time arrived for the mid- 
day meal the old lady produced her frugal luncheon, which 
was barely enough for one, and generously offered to share 
it with me. 

What we did find that might be included under the ge- 
neric term of politeness was ceremonious etiquette between 
the members of the upper classes, fawning obsequiousness in 
the shop-keeping class, and cringing servility in the peasantry. 

The samurai retain, to a large extent, the courteous old 
forms, and those who wish to be considered above the com- 
mon herd imitate them. But while the little girls of the 
rising generation seem to be schooled in manners, the boys 
in the larger towns seem to be growing up without any man- 
ners at all, either foreign or Japanese. In Tokyo, when a 
gentleman of the " old school " and a lady meet, when out 
walking, you will see them incline their bodies forward until 
they are horizontal, and with their hands on their knees move 
their heads up and down two or three times before assuming 
the perpendicular. And the little girls may be seen gravely 
dropping a curtsey when they part in the streets. In two 
or three out-of-the-way districts, far away from European 
influences, we found the school children still taught to bow 
or curtsey to strangers on the road, as well as to their teach- 
ers at the school ; but this custom is dying out even faster 
than the similar curtsey of English children. In contrast to 
this politeness, we were treated on two occasions to fusillades 
of stones by groups of small boys. 



330 JAPANESE TRAITS 

The Japanese smile is not so much an indication of cheer- 
fulness or pleasure as a mark of deference toward a superior, 
or a mask for the concealment of other emotions. A little 
incident came under our notice in Yokohama which was an 
example of smiling under difficulties. A powerful young 
fellow standing in front of a greengrocer's stall suddenly 
snatched up a pumpkin and hid it in the sleeve of his 
kimono. The grocer detected him in the act, and the thief 
bolted, with the grocer in pursuit. The thief was wearing 
high clogs (takageta), and the grocer gave chase bare-footed ; 
but the former managed to keep his distance, and dashed by 
us, smiling as if he had just heard a good story and was rush- 
ing off to tell it. A few paces farther on he came to grief. 
One of his clogs caught in a crevice between two boards, as 
he was crossing a bridge, and down he came, still smiling. 
His clogs fell off, and the pumpkin rolled in one direction 
and he in another. In an instant the grocer seized one of 
the clogs and struck the thief a resounding blow on the skull 
with it, a retaliation which was accepted smilingly, and then 
marched off triumphantly with his pumpkin. The thief rose 
to find himself confronted by a policeman. The latter was 
the smaller of the two, but he had the advantage of selecting 
his grip, or hold, and he at once endeavoured to put in force 
the scientific arm-twisting taught in the art of jujutsu. 
Smiling still, the thief quietly withdrew himself from his 
more expert but less powerful adversary, pushed him to one 
side, and darted off again. But bad luck pursued him, and 
he ran plump into the arms of two bigger men, who held him 
prisoner until the policeman, mortified at having been cir- 
cumvented, came up and promptly seized his defenceless 
adversary by the throat and throttled him. Not till the 
breath was choked out of him did the smile die away from 
the thief's face, and when the policeman released his hold 
from the neck of the half -suffocated wretch, to bind him with 
the cord (Jiayanawa) carried for this purpose, preparatory to 
marching him off to the station, the smile gradually returned. 
A native bystander remarked : " Foolish man ! If he had 
said ' Please excuse ' to the owner of the pumpkin when he 



JAPANESE TRAITS 



331 



was detected, nothing would have been done. Or if he had 
gone quietly to the station at first, he would have got off with 
a few weeks' imprisonment ; but now he will get many months 
for resisting arrest." From beginning to end the thief never 
spoke a word or uttered a sound, only smiled. 

The manners of the ignorant and dull rustics leave some- 
thing to be desired. For one thing, it is only in Japan that 
I found the country-people neglecting to return a passing 
salutation addressed to them in their own language. It is, 
perhaps, not surprising that a people so recently released 
from feudal serfdom should in some ways resemble the slaves 
emancipated about the same time in the United States ; but 
the curious mixture of servility, bumptiousness, and trucu- 
lency in the bearing of the enfranchised negroes finds its 
counterpart in the Japanese peasantry ; and the position of 
the negro in the Southern States, where in theory and law 
he is the equal of the white man, but in practice is kept in 
an inferior station, is duplicated in Japan in the relation of 
the peasant to the samurai. 





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Pattern of Kimono 
Cut by most fashionable Japanese makers. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 

Japan's Debt to China. How the Debt will be repaid. China's Awaken- 
ing. Japanese Competition. Rise in Prices and in Wages. Chinese 
Labour preferred. " The Frenchmen of the East." Art. Decline 
of Taste. Carving. Lacquer. Literature. 

The Japanese people have some traits resembling those of 
the Chinese ; and, directly or indirectly, Japan owes to 
China her religion, her fine arts, her written language, her 
literature, and many of her crafts and cultivations. From 
China, or Korea, came sericulture ; the cultivation of tea, in 
the thirteenth century; mining; the manufacture of tissues, 
of bronze, of porcelain, and of lacquer; architecture; the arts 
of painting, of wood carving, of metal chasing, and of embroid- 
ery. In fact, Japan has borrowed so much that it has been 
the fashion to say that the Japanese have invented nothing, 
have originated nothing, and that they totally lack initiative 
and creative faculties. Three hundred years ago the Portu- 
guese introduced tobacco, and Japan began the imitation of 
Western habits, which has proceeded with increasing rapidity 
in recent years. 

But Hearn contends that " they are not imitative at all ; 
they are assimilative and adoptive only." He speaks of 
Japan's immeasurable capacities of assimilation, and says, "she 
has adopted nothing for a merely imitative reason, but " has 
selected and adopted the best of everything." If this is true, 
then we must admit that the packing-case style of architec- 
ture is the best for public buildings, and the frock-coat and 
silk hat the best for public functions. But if it is true 
that " the measure of intelligence is adaptability," the Japa- 
nese can take rank with the most intelligent races of the 
world, for they have adapted the results of Western science 

332 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 333 

and invention to their own needs ; and if thej have not 
always made the best selection, or got the best value, they 
can console themselves with the conceit that they would 
" never make anything if they never made mistakes." 

In painting, in sculpture, in lacquer-work, in metal cast- 
ing, and in the manufacture of textile fabrics, the Japanese 
have improved upon their ancient masters, but they have 
not yet made any notable improvements or advances in the 
line of Western science. Whether this proves "a general 
incapacity for abstract ideas " and a failure to grasp princi- 
ples and to take large views, remains to be seen ; but as a 
race the Japanese certainly possess powers of application 
and concentration which, combined with unlimited curiosity, 
may carry them over the initial difficulties. Foremost of 
these is the unsuitability of the Japanese language as a 
means of conveying Western thoughts and modern scientific 
expressions. Not only must the native student learn two 
distinct syllabaries in order to read Japanese, but he must 
commit to memory the thousands of Chinese ideographs 
which are employed in Japanese books. The Japanese boy 
may be eight years in school before he has learnt to read, 
and if he is to keep pace with Western scientific progress, he 
must study at least one European language. 

The Japanese seem to think that there is a finality in 
science, and that when they have employed a good foreign 
teacher in any profession, and learnt what he has to impart, 
their knowledge is complete. After the teacher has been 
with them a few years, instead of giving him a holiday of 
a year or two, so that he may inform himself of the progress 
made in his profession during his absence, or of employing 
another teacher familiar with the latest developments, they 
send the foreign teacher away, and the students under him 
become the teachers of the rising generation. This is, no 
doubt, better than not learning at all, but their science, 
under the present system, soon becomes antiquated, in spite 
of the further expedient of sending students abroad to ac- 
quire the knowledge of the West at its fountainheads. 

Japan is destined to become the teacher of her old master 



334 JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 

in arts and sciences ; and China will find it more convenient 
to get Western knowledge through Japan than to seek for 
it direct. The written language is identical, as far as ideo- 
graphs are employed, and a few days' study will enable any 
Chinese scholar to master the Japanese syllabaries, which are 
founded on the Chinese ideographs. The spoken language 
can be learnt by a Chinaman of ordinary intelligence in three 
months ; and Western thought and science, as translated in 
Japanese text-books, are then open to the Chinese student. 
If the Chinese determine to share the advantages secured to 
the Japanese by the adoption of the material progress of the 
West, they will naturally turn to the Japanese, and will have 
the advantage of the experience gained by the latter. This 
course of procedure has already been inaugurated by sending 
Chinese students to Japan, and this intercourse may lead to 
the alliance between China and Japan which has been advo- 
cated by prominent Japanese politicians ; an alliance that 
would powerfully supplement the alliance between England 
and Japan, and bring about the opening of China under the 
auspices of the nations who, on the one side, best understand 
her people, and, on the other side, would most benefit from 
the resulting increase of trade. 

If China experiences the same awakening as has Japan, 
if her great natural resources are developed and modern 
machinery and processes introduced, there may come a time 
when Chinese manufactures, traded in by Chinese merchants, 
will rule the markets of the world. And the competition 
against European manufacturers would be much more severe 
than any likely to come from Japan. The frugality, steadi- 
ness, application, and discipline of the Chinese coolies, and 
the shrewdness and probity of the Chinese merchants, would 
count for much if they ever have the opportunities those 
classes have in Japan. 

In spite of low wages, abundant and cheap fuel, and the 
use of improved machinerj^ the Japanese manufacturers have 
become serious competitors with Western nations in only a 
few articles of international trade. The manufacture and 
export of matches, of paper, of cotton yarns, and cotton and 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 335 

silk tissues, have shown the greatest increases ; and in the 
industrial arts, where delicate manipulation and dexterity is 
necessary, the Japanese handicraftsmen can hold their own. 
But while wages have been low in Japan, they have risen 
enormously in recent years, and are now about double what 
they were ten years ago, and the advance in the wages of 
factory hands is even greater. But the production per capita 
in spinning is less than a quarter of the like production in 
the United States ; and in watch-making, one European will 
do as much work as seven or eight Japanese, so that the cost 
of the item of labour in manufactures is generally greater 
in Japan than in Europe, owing to its inefficiency, to the 
lack of skilled labour, to its want of economical organisation 
and management, and to the unsteadiness of the Japanese 
workman. As measured by results, Japanese labour is found 
to be dearer than in America or Europe ; and the higher 
standard of living that has obtained in Japan, and the rise 
in the general level of the prices of necessities, make it 
unlikely to become cheaper, except through the adoption of 
labour-saving appliances or the slower process of educational 
improvement. 

The Japanese artisan who sits on his mat and uses both 
hands and feet at his work, holding a board between the lat- 
ter while he planes it, or using his big toe to hold something 
he is working on, seems to have a great advantage over his 
European competitors ; and when you see that his food is a 
bowl of rice and his working clothes a loin-cloth, you con- 
clude that he can afford to work upon very low wages. But 
as a matter of fact, he cannot compete against the amassed 
capital behind the Western workman, which provides the 
latter with every improvement in labour-saving machinery. 
The Japanese artisan can no more do so than can his fellow- 
labourers, who were loading a steamer with hewn stones 
brought aboard on their backs, or those at Otsu whom we 
saw dredging out the steamer dock with their hands, compete 
with electric cranes or steam dredgers. 

The improvement in the standard of living in Japan is 
found throughout the whole social scale from the poorer 



336 JAPANESE ARTS AND AETISANS 

peasants, who formerly sold their rice and lived upon the 
cheaper millet and now indulge in rice and other luxuries, 
to the rich merchant, who indulges in extravagant display 
and outlays that would have been impossible in the previous 
rSgime. During the last ten years the average rise in com- 
modities has been about 70 per cent., while rice nearly trebled 
in price ; and owing to the increased consumption of luxuries 
such as sugar, which has increased threefold, the cost of liv- 
ing has risen with the advance of wages, and had about 
doubled in a decade. From January, 1887, to January, 
1901, there hafd been such exceptional increases in price 
percentages as dried fish 175, rye 179, lumber 172, salt 134, 
eggs 130, oil 140, beans 107, and barley 103, and several other 
commodities nearly doubled in price. The export price of 
coal rose nearly 50 per cent, between 1896 and 1900, owing 
almost entirely to the increased cost of labour. 

Hearn says, "The Oriental has proved his ability to study 
and to master the results of our science upon a diet of rice, 
and on as simple a diet can learn to manufacture and to util- 
ise our most complicated inventions." This may some day 
become true of the Chinese ; but it is exactly what the Jap- 
anese are not, and will not be, content to do. 

The Chinese in Hawaii, in California, and in the other 
Pacific States command higher wages than the Japanese, and 
can be depended on to do more and better work. In 1901 
the Chinese in British Columbia were stated to be able to com- 
mand wages twice as high as the Japanese. These Chinese 
coolies in foreign countries show a similar tendency to spend 
an increasing amount on food and luxuries ; but not to the 
extent practised by the Japanese at home. 

In keen eyesight and retentive memories the Japanese 
rival the Chinese ; but on the whole they have, apart from 
appearances, more points of resemblance to the French than 
to the people of any Asiatic country. This similarity is 
deeper than the superficial analogy of an insincere etiquette 
common to both people. In emotional tendencies ; in na- 
tional vanity and personal conceit ; in light-heartedness and 
gaiety ; in the aiming for dramatic effect and the disposition 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 337 

to pose ; in their inconstancy of purpose ; in their political 
restlessness, fickleness, and ambition which foster the growth 
of groups instead of parties, there are striking similarities. 
There is the same tendency to suicide as the consequence of 
an unfortunate alfair involving their affections or honour ; 
and Japan has legally instituted courts of honour with simi- 
lar functions to the informal courts of honour known in 
France. Deeper still is the feeling of love for the soil of 
the fatherland, common to both people, the existence of a 
vast body of peasants cultivating small holdings in both 
countries, and the great correspondence in the relation of 
the family to the state, which led to the French law being 
adopted as the foundation of the new Civil Code, the whole 
of the second part of which is devoted to "kindred" and 
"succession." The English translation, by John Haring- 
ton Gubbins, C.M.G., contains an extremely curious and 
interesting introduction, of 59 pages, on the Japanese family 
system, pointing out some of the similarities to the Roman 
and French systems, which introduction contains the sub- 
stance of the 171 pages of the translated Second Part of the 
Civil Code. 

In both Japan and France there is amongst the upper 
classes the same scrupulous adhesion to etiquette and cere- 
mony in daily intercourse, the same excessive bowing and 
scraping, the same overdone deference to official or social 
superiors, the same prolixity of compliments in speech and 
writing, and the same pretence of humility which make both 
peoples pleasant enough as acquaintances ; but all this man- 
ner is combined with such a patent lack of sincerity, as to 
make one uncertain as to how far they may be individually 
trusted as friends. 

The absence, from a party point of view, of political cohe- 
sion, leads in both countries to the support of persons instead 
of principles, and to the formation of a number of parliamen- 
tary cliques more intent on pushing their separate ambitions 
than on promoting the political welfare of the country, so 
that parliamentary warfare centres around the question 
whether power and office shall be in the hands of this or that 



338 JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 

clique. The Japanese press, subsidised by tliese cliques, has 
imitated some of the most objectionable features of the French 
party papers. When the agreement with England, signed 
on 30th January, 1902, was a fortnight later published, and 
the Japanese rejoiced in the most striking triumph their 
diplomatists had ever achieved, the Japanese press inau- 
gurated " an acrimonious argument " as to what part the 
Marquis Ito took in the negotiations. 

In a country where every child is taught to draw and 
make pictures in black and white, it is natural that the people 
should be considered "a nation of artists." Instead of learn- 
ing to write cramped characters with a pen in a strained 
position, the Japanese children learn to paint with a brush 
the decorative forms of the Chinese ideographs, or hiero- 
glyphics, and the similarly fashioned, but abbreviated kata- 
kana and Mragana syllabaries of forty-seven characters each. 
This painting is done not only with a free hand, but a free 
arm, and from an early age the child is taught to paint with 
a freedom and boldness, combined with an accuracy, preci- 
sion, and delicacy, which is an invaluable training to the hand 
and eye ; while the study of the innumerable Chinese char- 
acters cultivates the memory to an extraordinary degree. 
Perhaps this very training causes the Japanese mind to 
become receptive instead of creative ; but it has undoubtedly 
cultivated " original perceptivity of the highest order," and 
the Japanese artist starts with an equipment and experi- 
ence, both hereditary and practical, which give him an enor- 
mous initial advantage. Moreover, the medium employed 
in Japanese art is not oil, but water-colours and the same 
Indian-ink as that used for writing are alone used by all 
except the modern Japanese painters who have had Euro- 
pean training. 

The history of painting in Japan, from its introduction in 
the second century from China through Korea up to the 
fourteenth century, shows a development followed by an 
exhaustion and stagnation common to the history of the art 
in many Western countries. Korean influence was strength- 
ened by the artist Inshiraga in the fifth century, and in the 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 339 

middle of the sixth century Buddhism penetrated Japan 
from Korea. Tlie Chinese and Buddhist religious conven- 
tions, modified by the Korean school, directed Japanese art, 
and perpetuated the neglect of perspective and shadows in 
painting. The oldest authenticated paintings in Japan are 
those decorating the walls of the temple of Horyuji at Nara. 
They represent the figures of Buddhist divinities, and are 
said to have been painted by a Korean artist in the year 607. 
These frescoes are not only curious on account of their age 
and their well-preserved colours, but because they form 
almost the only exceptions to the rule that Japanese paint- 
ings are always done by the seated artist on a surface spread 
on the floor before him. Four hundred years later a depar- 
ture was made by Kutara Kawanari, who forsook religious 
models and painted men and animals. But meanwhile, at 
the end of the ninth century, Kose-no-Kanaoka, to whose 
brush is ascribed a painting of flowers preserved at Horyuji, 
founded a school devoted to religious subjects which at the 
end of the eleventh century had given rise to the schools of 
Takuma and Yamato, the former clinging to the conventions 
of religious art, and the latter, afterw^ards called the Tosa 
school, depicting the customs and costumes of the court. 
A minor school was created during the twelfth century by 
the priest Toba Sojio, who painted humorous caricatures ; 
and the Japanese word for similar paintings is tohae. 

These schools lasted until the fourteenth century, and pro- 
duced an art national in character, and peculiar to Japan ; 
for Chinese influence disappeared, and a new and more rigid 
set of conventions took its place. Infinite care in execution, 
the most minute exactness in detail, and correctness of form 
and colour were insisted upon ; but originality was crushed 
and development arrested, until art became as fixed in Japan 
as it was in Greece before the advent of Pheidias, or in 
western Europe in the fourteenth century. 

The artistic renaissance took place in Japan about the 
same time as it arose in Italy, and it was due to the return 
of the Japanese priests who had gone to study Buddhism in 
China, and who brought with them examples of the ."oaintings 



340 JAPANESE AETS AND ARTISANS 

of the then flourishing Chinese art. One of them, Josetsu, 
" created a new style distinguished by rapidity of execution," 
and was the real founder of the Kano school. Another, 
Cho Densu, combined Chinese and Japanese methods. Shii- 
bun, a pupil of the former, devoted himself to landscapes, 
and inspired both Sesiishii and Kano Masanobu, from whom 
the Kano school gets its name. Masanobu's son, Motonobu, 
was a still greater artist, and the Kano school, inspired by 
Chinese methods and subjects, increased in influence. Dur- 
ing this period the Tosa school produced a famous represen- 
tative in the person of Mitsunobu, whose designs are the 
favourite models for reproduction in lacquer-work at the 
present day. At the beginning of the seventeenth century 
another disciple of the Tosa school, Iwasa Matahei, took an 
independent line by giving up the painting of court scenes, 
and depicting the life of the common people. His school, 
which is known as the Ukiyoe, produced in the eighteenth 
century the great portrayer of women, Hijikawa Moronobu ; 
the caricaturist, Hanabusa Itcho ; and the genre painter, 
Miyagawa Choshun. The decorative artist Honami Koetsu 
also sprang from the Tosa school. 

The era of the Tokugawa shoguns, which began in the 
year of Queen Elizabeth's death, and lasted for over 250 
years to the present era of Meidji, witnessed at its beginning 
a new renaissance due to the influx of refugees from China, 
and also saw the Kano school reach its zenith under Kano 
Tanyu, the first Japanese impressionist. Landscape paint- 
ing was at its best for a hundred years from the middle of 
the seventeenth century, and the painting of figures attained 
to the greatest delicacy during the next century. Following 
in the footsteps of Koetsu, Ogata Korin developed the art of 
decorative painting, and founded the Korin school. Toward 
the end of the eighteenth century Okyo founded the school 
of realists ; and the quickness of eye and keenness of obser- 
vation natural to all Japanese have enabled the followers of 
this school to accurately depict animal life instinct with 
movement and pictorial charm. The last of the Japanese 
old masters was Kikuchi Yosai, who died in 1878. But 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 341 

Kodosbika Hokusai died in 184:9, and it was the know- 
ledge of form, the quaint humour, the power, and the 
draughtsmanship disphiyed in his wood-cut illustrations in 
books which found their way to Europe, that reawakened 
the interest in Japanese art which was first aroused by the 
collection of porcelain in Dresden, and of Japanese lacquers 
in Paris. Hokusai drew landscapes, but excelled in illustra- 
tions of the national life of the people. 

The Japanese artists of the Kano Tanyii school of impres- 
sionists, of the decorative Korin school, and of the Okyo 
school of realists, appeal to Western taste, and have had 
their influence on Western art. Their light yet precise 
touch, their grace and delicacy, their ingenuity and sugges- 
tiveness, their imagination and refinement, their accuracy of 
drawing and harmonious colouring, and even their irregu- 
larity of composition have been admired and copied. It 
needs no acquaintance with the history of art movement in 
Europe to trace the debt of the French impressionist school 
to that of Japan, or to see the resemblance between the 
mournful landscapes of Corot, the fantastic grouping of 
Degas, the capricious landscapes of Whistler, and the colour- 
ing of Alfred Stevens, and similar qualities in the work of 
Japanese artists. 

Edouard Manet, the father of French impressionists, owes 
much to the display of Japanese art at the Paris Exhibition 
of 1867, which proved a revelation to the painters of the day; 
but the Exhibition of 1900 showed the reaction of European 
art on that of Japan, and disclosed the fact that no great 
painter has come to the front in that countrj^ in recent years. 
Among the painters of landscapes and genre pictures, who 
have adopted Western method of painting in oil, Seiki 
Kuroda, Ikunosuki Shiratako, and Renz5 Kita made a good 
showing at the Paris Exhibition ; but during the last fifty 
years the names of Kyosai and Kikuchi Yosai are the only 
Japanese artists who have attained to any fame. 

Apart from the productions of the impressionist and realist 
schools, Japanese pictorial art, with its rigid conventionality, 
its automatic repetitions, its weak refinements of ancient 



342 JAPANESE AETS AND ARTISANS 

models, its lack of balance of composition, and its religious 
and literary associations, can appeal to but few beyond those 
wbo have deeply studied the literature and religions of the 
country. Even such enthusiasts must smile at the inclusion 
of the flowers of all seasons in one picture, at Fuji-yama 
being in the background of the same landscapes viewed from 
every point of the compass, and at the impossible tigers and 
elephants (the latter with hocks) evolved from the artists' 
imaginations. 

In relation to the influence of a long period of seclusion 
from the rest of the world upon the domestic decorative art 
of a country, an influence which was accentuated in Japan 
by the enforcement of severe sumptuary laws, which dictated 
the details of the people's houses, apparel, and other posses- 
sions, down to their very umbrellas. Sir W. Martin Conway 
in his " Domain of Art " says : " Sometimes indeed the tools 
and objects of domestic utility of a country have all been 
beautiful, and a high general level of decorative excellence 
has obtained. It was so in Pompeii, as shown by modern 
excavations. This can only be the case where a long, slowly 
elaborated tradition has stereotyped the forms of ordinary 
objects of utility," and " There was a well-marked difference 
of style between the productions of China and Japan and the 
rest of the world, and in each case the style was a slowly 
elaborated product of a national life." 

But it seems that Japanese taste, which had been moulded 
to a high standard, has been unable to withstand the clash of 
Western ideas. For when it comes to selecting European 
clothes, furniture, or utensils, or building European houses, 
or adopting European customs, the modern Japanese show 
a lack of taste that belies their former reputation ; and they 
appear to lose all aesthetic judgment in their restless desire 
for change and material advancement. That they should do 
so is perhaps inevitable ; but that they should have done so 
makes it no longer possible to sincerely say that " the instinct 
of beauty is so strong in the Japanese artisan that things 
come from his hands beautified " or that " love of the beau- 
tiful is a prominent and highly developed Japanese trait," or 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 343 

that "the aesthetic faculty is possessed by all classes." Nor 
is it any longer possible to discover " the universal sense of 
beauty among the people," or " the passionate sense of beauty 
pervading even the humblest," or to agree that they are a 
"people instinct with the love of poetry and nature." 

The tendency of the modern Japanese is well illustrated 
by the following extract from the invaluable book on 
" Things Japanese," by Professor Chamberlain. " Many 
roads in Japan are lined with tall cryptomerias and other 
trees. Shortly after the introduction of telegraphy into the 
country, the Japanese began to hew down these monumental 
trees in their zeal for what they believed to be civilisation. 
The telegraph-poles would, they thought, show to much bet- 
ter advantage without such old-fashioned companions. A 
howl from the foreign press of Yokohama fortunately brought 
the official Goths to their senses, and after the Tdkaido had 
been partially denuded, the remaining avenues were spared." 

Japanese sculpture is of Buddhist origin, but it has lost its 
ancient distinction and strength. The old temple wood- 
carvings at Narita, at Nara, and at Shiba (in T6ky5) are in- 
deed admirable; but the sculpture of the present day has 
lost in power what it has gained in refinement and accuracy. 
The wood- and ivory-carvers of Tokyd and Kydto turn out 
countless figures of men and animals executed with the 
greatest care ; but what one is generally called upon to 
admire is not originality of conception or boldness of design 
so much as minuteness of detail and uniform excellence of 
finish. But at the last Paris Exhibition Kisai Yamado and 
Eeioun Arakawa displayed figures in wood rivalling even 
those carved thirty years ago by Matsumoto Kisaburo. 

It is in the applied and industrial arts that Japan has re- 
cently made and is still making the greatest progress. In 
the manufacture of textile fabrics, in the art of metal-work- 
ing, in the making of cloisonne, and in the whole field of 
ceramics, Japan has improved on her own previous excel- 
lence, and even the lacquer produced to-day by Kyoto 
handicraftsmen is not excelled by anything made in the past. 
The cloisonne enamels made by Namikawa, and Inaba, of 



344 JAPANESE AETS AND ARTISANS 

Kyoto, and by the workshops of Hattori, Hayashi, Kawaguti, 
Tomiki, and And5 of Nagoya, are superior to the cloisonne 
of any other country or period; and Japanese methods of 
working in metals are now being adopted with advantage by 
European countries. 

The production of lacquered ware (murimono or shikhi) 
was an art which, it is claimed, was originated in Japan, and 
black-lacquer had acquired a high degree of perfection fif- 
teen hundred years ago. Red-lacquer dates from the end of 
the seventh century, and in the next century designs in 
gold powder between the lacquer coatings (mahie) were first 
employed. The use of gold spangles came later, and the pear- 
coloured ground sprinkled with gold-leaf under the outer 
varnish was given the name of nashiji. Painting in lacquer 
began in the seventeenth century, and at the end of that 
century the art had reached its highest point of excellence. 
To this period belongs the magnificent gold-lacquer tomb of 
th& second Tokugawa shogun in the Octagonal Hall at Shiba. 

In modern times the art has declined only in the sense that 
the growing demand for cheap wares both at home and abroad 
has stimulated the manufacture of inferior articles, but such 
makers as the two Mikamis of Kyoto can to-day produce gold- 
lacquer as fine as that of any former period. In making 
ordinary lacquered ware the sap of the lacquer-tree is applied 
direct to the wooden article, and permitted to dry. But in 
finer work the wooden surface is carefully prepared and given 
a preliminary coating of lacquer (uruslii^^ after which it 
is covered with a fine hemp or linen cloth upon which repeated 
coatings are applied, and rubbed in with a smooth stone, and 
each coating polished with hard charcoal when it has dried. 
Between the coats, which may number eight or ten, and in ex- 
ceptional cases over thirty, ornamentation in leaf or powdered 
gold, or other metals, or designs in colours, may be introduced, 
and the final surface coating may be highly polished, or a rough 
uneven surface may be left to produce certain effects. Heavy 
red-lacquer on metals and porcelain is usually carved with a 
rough surface. It is curious that lacquer is best dried in a 
damp place away from the light ; and that in all its stages, 



JAPANESE ARTS AND ARTISANS 345 

until it is quite diy, it is a strong irritant to the skin, produc- 
ing a sort of poisoning (urasM kabura) wliicli is extremely 
annoying, although not dangerous. When thoroughly dry, 
well-made lacquer is impervious to ordinary heat, cold, or 
damp, and to many acids and solvents ; and therefore, if the 
wood to which it is applied is well seasoned, can be preserved 
in active use for an almost unlimited time. 

It is easier to study old Japanese art in Europe than in 
Japan. Apart from the collection in the Ueno Museum, in 
Tokyo, and the articles in the possession of the temples scat- 
tered about the country, there is little to be seen in the way 
of art treasures in Japan, as they are mostly preserved in the 
private go-downs of their owners, and are brought out only for 
the benefit of friends, and then only a few at a time. I have 
seen more beautiful old objects of Japanese art in the public 
collections in London, Dresden, and Paris, including in the 
latter the objects displayed by the Japanese government at 
the International Exhibitions, than in the whole of Japan. 

While it is probably an exaggeration to say that there is 
no modern Japanese literature, it is undoubtedly true that 
there is none so valuable as that of ancient China, which is 
the classic literature of Japan. Poetry is almost entirely 
restricted in form to the stanza of five lines or thirty-one 
syllables. This verse (^uta) has five syllables to the first and 
third lines, and seven syllables to each of the other three. It 
is not unlike the Malay pantun, which, however, is a verse of 
four lines. The uta does not seem to be valued for its poeti- 
cal language or ideas so much as for its play upon words, its 
double meaning, or its puns, and Japanese wits compete with 
one another on all festive occasions in composing these verses. 
The Japanese are said to be great readers, and, as they find 
it difficult to understand their own literature unless it is read 
aloud, the voice of the paid reader or of the solitary student 
may often be heard through the screens of your room at an 
inn droning through the night. Or perhaps you will be 
kept awake by the hired storyteller whose recitation is only 
interrupted by the grunts of his audience, or occasional 
exclamations of " so des Jca " (" Is that so ? "). 



CHAPTER XXX 

TRADE AND FINANCE 

The Circulating Medium. Banks. Industrial Companies. The Crisis 
of 1901. Foreign Capital required. Foreign Trade. Exports and 
Imports. The International Balance Sheet. The Budget. Taxes. 
Expenditures. 

The termination of the war with China early in 1895 
opened an era of unexampled commercial and financial activ- 
ity in Japan, and the rising prices of commodities, land, and 
labour gave an incentive to a gigantic speculation which 
spread in every direction. 

The establishment of a gold in place of a silver basis 
took place on the 1st of October, 1897 ; and on the 31st of 
March, 1899, the Bank of Japan had £18,700,000 bank notes 
outstanding, secured by holdings of gold and securities in 
about the proportions of 52 and 48 per cent. " The normal 
limit of the issue on security reserve, which was formerly 
85,000,000 yen, was extended to 120,000,000 yen (say 
£12,000,000) in March, 1899. The Bank of Japan has to 
pay a special-issue tax for the issue in excess of the normal 
limit." This excess reached the sum of over 41,000,000 yen 
at the end of 1900. There was estimated to be in circula- 
tion in March, 1899, about £2,200,000 gold coin (in addition 
to the gold reserve of the Bank of Japan), £5,100,000 silver 
coin; £1,700,000 copper and nickel coins; and £600,000 
other paper money ; giving £28,300,000 as the total circulat- 
ing medium. But of this total nearly £4,300,000 was in the 
Treasury, leaving £24,000,000 as the "amount of circulation 
in the market." At the end of March, 1901, the market cir- 
culation was over £26,000,000. 

A great impetus was given to the formation of banking, 

346 



TRADE AND FINANCE 347 

transportation, mining, cotton-spinning, and other industrial 
companies. At the end of 1894, there were 863 banks in 
Japan, with a total paid-up capital of about £10,000,000; 
by the end of 1899, there were 2105 banks, with nearly 
X 29,000,000 capital. 

The number and share capital of industrial companies 
rose from 778, with less than £4,500,000 share capital at 
the end of 1894, to 2164 at the end of 1898, with over 
£12,000,000 capital. Including banks, railways, and all 
other companies, the number increased in this period from 
2104 to 7044, and the share capital from under £15,000,000 
to over £62,000,000, and there was a further increase of about 
10 per cent in 1899. 

The first shock came in June, 1899, when Japan tried to 
float a loan of £10,000,000, 4 per cent bonds, in London, at 90. 
£2,000,000 had been taken firm, but of the balance under 
£1,000,000 were subscribed by the public. Japan had 
overestimated her credit, and had offered too low a rate of 
interest; but she also had the misfortune to select a most 
unfavourable time for bringing out the loan, as the trouble 
in South Africa was then brewing, and business on the Euro- 
pean bourses was very restricted, and prices falling. At the 
time of this fiasco, the banks in Japan were charging 10 per 
cent for loans as against nearly 15 per cent the previous year, 
and were allowing 6 per cent to 7 per cent on deposits, so that 
the government was obliged to pay a higher rate than 4|^ per 
cent for what it was able to borrow at home. But the failure 
to sell its bonds abroad was one of the direct causes of the 
exports of gold the following year, which amounted to 
£4,280,000 net. 

Speculation, which never fully recovered from the shock 
caused by the failure of the loan, could not stand the strain 
of financial stringency, and the gold exports of 1900 precipi- 
tated the crash in the spring of 1901. The gold reserve of 
the Bank of Japan fell, during the closing months of 1900, 
to 30 per cent of the outstanding notes. A financial panic 
developed ; there were heavy runs on the banks, which 
caused many of them to suspend, and the government itself 



348 TRADE AND FINANCE 

was obliged to pay 7^ per cent on Exchequer bills. Indeed, 
as recently as July, 1902, tbe government was obliged to 
pay over 7 per cent on Treasury bonds, and was unable to 
get the public to subscribe for a third of the amount offered. 
After the panic subsided, things speedily began to mend, gold 
imports began, and continued during the latter part of 1901, 
until they balanced the earlier exports, and the Bank of Japan 
increased its specie reserve. In June, 1902, the gold reserve 
was 16,000,000 yen higher than in June, 1901. 

But imports of commodities fell off, and are not likely to 
have any very rapid growth again until the government bor- 
rows large sums abroad. It has been proposed that the gov- 
ernment should buy up all the private railways ; and, when it 
is able to borrow money abroad at 5 per cent for this pur- 
pose, it would be a paying thing for the government and 
a good thing for the country, as it would release a great 
lock-up of capital that could find employment in other 
profitable ways. In October, 1902, a loan of 50,000,000 
yen 5 per cent bonds was successfully floated in London 
at par. 

But the prosperity of Japan would be better promoted by 
a change in its laws relating to land and to corporations, so 
as to remove the impediments to the investment of foreign 
capital in the country. Until a new generation arises of 
Japanese merchants, with a reputation for commercial prob- 
ity, the amount of foreign capital in the shape of credits can- 
not be expected to increase very much ; but if there were no 
restrictions on individual foreign ownership of land, and the 
payment of sums due on mortgages taken by foreigners could 
be enforced by taking possession of the mortgaged property, 
foreign capital could find safe investments in Japan to yield 
good rates of interest, and Japanese manufacturers and com- 
panies could increase their profits by raising money, to com- 
plete and extend their businesses, on mortgages and mortgage 
debentures. Japan ought now to feel strong enough to no 
longer be afraid of foreign invasion or aggression, and to 
place foreigners upon the same legal footing in regard to land 
and corporations as her own nationals. 



TEADE AND FINANCE 349 

The foreign trade of Japan sliowed a steady growth up to 
the war Avith China, which was terminated by the treaty of 
Shimonoseki, signed on the 17th of April, 1895, and since 
then it has increased with wonderful rapidity. In 1896 the 
total value of the combined imports and exports amounted to 
about 290,000,000 yen ; in 1901 it exceeded 508,000,000 yen. 
The imports in 1896 were valued at 171,000,000 yen, in 1897 
at 219,000,000 yen, and the following year, under the stimulus 
of the higher tariff, which went into effect on the 1st of Janu- 
ary, 1899, they exceeded 277,000,000 yen. In spite of the 
over-supply of many classes of imported goods in 1898, the 
total imports only fell in 1899 to the 1897 level, and rose 
again to 287,000,000 yen in 1900. This was the high-water 
mark for imports. Over-trading and financial difficulties 
brought about a reaction, and in 1901 the imports fell to less 
than 256,000,000 yen. 

The export trade during the six years ending with 1901 
rose from under 117,000,000 yen to over 252,000,000 yen. 
The exports of 1898 showed little increase over 1897, owing 
to a poor silk crop, which reduced the exports of silk and 
its products over 10,000,000 yen ; but other staple exports 
steadily increased in value. In a similar way the decline of 
nearly 13,000,000 yen in 1900, as compared with 1899, was 
doubly accounted for by a disappointing silk crop which 
caused a falling off of 18,000,000 yen in the value of raw silk 
exported, and by the trouble in China which led to a decrease 
of 8,000,000 yen in the value of cotton yarns alone sent to 
that country. In 1901, owing to a phenomenal silk crop and 
to a general increase in other commodities, the exports rose 
until, for the first time since 1895, they almost balanced the 
imports, which, owing to the reasons mentioned, had mean- 
while suffered a decline. 

Raw silk and its manufactures, together with cotton yarn 
and tissues, account in recent years for over half of the total 
value of the export trade in Japan. In 1901, out of exports 
valued at 252,000,000 yen, the silkworm provided 109,000,000 
yen, and the cotton factories 28,000,000 yen. Coal was 
exported to the value of 17,500,000 yen; copper nearly 



350 TRADE AND FINANCE 

14,000,000 yen ; tea nearly 9,000,000 yen ; and matches over 
7,000,000 yen. So that these half a dozen groups supplied 
over 184 out of 252,000,000 yen, or 73 per cent ; and textiles 
alone accounted for over half the total exports. 

The United States is Japan's greatest customer ; and has 
absorbed over thirty per cent in value of the total exports 
whenever the silk crop is a good one, and in 1898 the United 
States took over half the value of Japan's silk exports. Japan 
has in recent years supplied the United States with about 
forty-two per cent of the raw silk imported by the latter 
country, and with about forty per cent of the tea. Practi- 
cally all tea exported from Japan goes to the United States 
and Canada. Most of the coarse and refined copper goes to 
Hong Kong; and the coal and matches are sent to all the 
Asiatic ports. The cotton yarns and tissues all go to China 
and Korea, the exports to the former country going direct 
or by way of Hong Kong. 

Besides coal and copper, which figure so largely in ex- 
ports, the mines of Japan produce iron, lead, silver, man- 
ganese, and other metals, as well as sulphur; and the 
annual production of petroleum is approaching 20,000,000 
gallons. 

The details of the import trade are interesting as showing 
the extremely diversified demands of the country, forty-five 
per cent of which are supplied by Great Britain and the 
United States, the increasing consumption of sugar, and the 
large imports of raw cotton. Great Britain sends nearly all 
the spinning -machinery and the cotton manufactures imported 
except cotton-flannel, which comes from Germany. From 
Great Britain goes all the steel ; about three-fourths of the 
iron sheets and plates ; the greatest value of telegraph cables, 
steam-boilers, and engines, including locomotives ; and a 
smaller proportion of bridge-work, rails, bar and rod iron, 
pipes, and printing paper. The United States has acquired 
a practical monopoly in supplying electric-light machinery, 
bicycles, watch-cases, oil in cans, tobacco, and flour. It 
provides two-thirds of the bridge-work erected in Japan, and 
of the rails imported; and more than half of the rails and 



TRADE AND FINANCE 351 

fittings, the iron pipes, and the telegraph wire ; while it 
closely follows Great Britain in the value of steam-boilers 
and engines sent. 

The imports of raw cotton in 1899 were valued at over 
62,000,000 yen, nearly double the value imported in 1896. 
There has been a slight falling off since 1899, but the value 
was over 60,000,000 yen in 1901. The value of sugar im- 
ported in 1896 was under 14,000,000 yen and in 1901 was 
over 33,000,000 yen. 

The balance sheet of Japan in account with the rest of 
the world for the six years ending 31st December, 1900, is 
approximately as follows : Japan had to pay for excess of 
imports over exports, including specie and bullion, during 
this period, 29,000,000 sterling. These imports included 
15,000,000 specie, imported by the government from proceeds 
of loans and indemnities. For freights, insurance, and other 
charges on trade paid abroad, about 1,500,000 sterling a year 
must be allowed, or 9,000,000 during the six years. Japanese 
travellers and students abroad may be estimated the modest 
sum of something under ,£100,000 a year, or say £500,000 
in six years. The government spent abroad for warships, 
supplies, and service of the debt held by foreigners the sum 
of £15,500,000. Therefore Japan had to provide for the 
payment of £54,000,000 under these heads : — 

Excess of imports £29,000,000 

Freights, insurance, etc. . . . 9,000,000 

Japanese abroad 500,000 

Government payments . . . 15,500,000 



£54,000,000 



This indebtedness has been balanced by the Chinese in- 
demnities received in London, the indemnity to cover the 
expense of occupying Wai-hai-wei, and interest received on 
deposits of part of these sums, in all about £ 38,000,000 ; 
by government bonds (of the par value of £ 15,500,000) 
sold for about £14,500,000, and by foreign travellers whose 
annual expenditures in Japan, apart from the purchases 
shipped as freight and appearing in the customs returns, may 



352 



TEADE AND FINANCE 



be estimated at <£ 250,000, or for six years £1,500,000 so that 
the payment of the £ 54,000,000 due has been met by 



Chinese indemnities, etc. . 
Government bonds sold for 
Foreign travellers in Japan 



£38,000,000 
. 14,500,000 
. 1,500,000 

£54,000,000 



In 1901 and the first six months of 1902, the imports and 
exports almost exactly balanced, and the amounts under the 
other headings would not materially modify the statement 
for the previous six years. 

The Japanese budgets for the years ending 31st March, 
1901 and 1902, may be conveniently condensed under the 
following heads, opposite to which are given the estimates in 
yen (00,000's omitted). 



Receipts 


1901 


1902 


Land t8.x 


47,4 


46,6 


Sake tax ....... 




55,5 


55,2 


Income tax . . . . . . 




5,0 


5,6 


Duties on imports 




15,9 


15,8 


Stamp duties ...... 




11,5 


13,7 


Leaf-tobacco monopoly .... 




9,0 


12,8 


Government railways .... 




7,2 


8,2 


Post Office and telegraphs 




22,0 


24,6 


Excise, patent, and other taxes and receipts 




25,2 


29,0 


Chinese Indemnity War 1894-5 




23,7 


18,5 


Loans, and Peking, etc., indemnities 




32,1 


47,5 






254,5 


277,5 



Expenditures 



1901 



1902 



Service of public debt .... 
Army and fortifications .... 

Navy 

Communications, railways, and post ofl&ce 

Other departments 

Surplus 



38,0 


37,8 


53,0 


49,5 


41,0 


37,0 


47,0 


50,7 


75,5 


101,0 




1,5 



2.54,5 



277,5 



TEADE AND FINANCE 353 

The land tax paid to the government represents less than 
one-half of the direct taxes levied on land and houses ; and 
the limit has probably been reached of this form of taxation. 
Not only has the proprietor to pay the government tax, but 
the department and communal expenditures, which amount 
to over eighty million yen per annum, are largely met by 
direct taxation on land and houses, which pay for these local 
expenditures a somewhat larger amount than is collected for 
Imperial purposes. The value of taxed lands was nearly ten 
per cent greater in 1893 than in 1900, the decreases being in 
rice-fields and farms, yet during that period the income from 
the land tax has increased nearly fourfold. The tax on the 
national drink, sake^ has been successfully raised, and the 
receipts trebled in five years, without materially decreasing 
the consumption ; but a limit seems now to have been 
reached, although the tax may at some future time be still 
further increased. 

The higher tariff, which went into effect on January 1, 
1899, gave a revenue of nearly sixteen millions against nine 
millions in the previous year ; but the falling off in imports 
will reduce the higher total, and it is probable that duties 
may have to be advanced again in the near future. The 
other items of revenue, including the income from the 
tobacco monopoly, show a net improvement from year to 
year which is likely to continue ; but the sake tax and im- 
port duties are the only imposts which can be looked to in 
the future as a means of largely increasing the public 
revenue. 

The expenditure on the navy amounted, in 1901, to one- 
sixth of the budget, a proportion which is about the same 
as that of the United Kingdom. A large part of the out- 
lay on the army and navy has been met with the proceeds of 
the old Chinese indemnity ; but this is now about exhausted, 
and the annual charge for these services must be halved, 
in order to balance the budget, unless there is an increase in 
taxation, or the budget is to be balanced by further loans. 
The budget for the year ending March 31, 1902, is swollen 
by the financial operations connected with the relief of 

2a 



354 TEADE AND FINANCE 

Peking during the previous fiscal year ; and it is probable 
that during the next few years, unless the new programme 
of ship-building for the navy is adopted, the budgets 
will be made to balance at totals not far from 270,000,000 
yen (say .£27,000,000). As it is, the Japanese debt is not 
a heavy one (about ,£50,000,000 in 1900, of which about 
,£15,500,000 was held abroad), and as offsets the state owns 
railways and other productive works, which have cost about 
,£13,500,000, and the government has floating assets esti- 
mated at over ^10,000,000. These may be excessive valua- 
tions, and the public lands, which are estimated officially at 
over £30,000,000, are at present of doubtful value, and will 
probably for many years to come be worth little more than 
capitalised value of the small income they now yield to the 
Treasury. 

On the same day that the last loan was offered, 7th of 
October, 1902, the London Times contained the following 
cable from Yokohama : — 

" Reports are in circulation that tlie Minister of Marine has decided 
upon a scheme of naval expansion embracing the construction of 120,000 
tons and extending over a jperiod of six years. The scheme will involve 
an annual expenditure of 20,000,000 yen. 

"It is proposed to build four battleships, six first-class cruisers, and 
various smaller craft. The battleships will be built in England, the 
cruisers in England, France, and Germany, and the remainder of the new 
fleet in Japan." 



CHAPTER XXXI 

IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 

Scenery. A Sterile Country. Comparisons. Characteristic Scenery. 
" The Three Views." Other Scenes. Roads. Climate. The Time 
to visit Japan. " The Smell of the East." Polluted Streams. Farm- 
ing. Insects. Disappointed Globe-trotters. 

A LONG list of talented travellers have given to the world 
their impressions of Japan. Forty years ago Alcock found 
it "one of the most beautiful countries in the whole world." 
Dr. Peery echoes this opinion, calls it " a beauteous land," 
and says " the whole of Japan abounds in picturesque land- 
scape and scenic beauty," and " few countries are more pleas- 
ing to the eye than is Japan." 

Miss Scidmore says that, after China, " Japan is a dream 
of Paradise, beautiful from the first green island off the coast 
to the last picturesque hill-top. . . . The bold and irregular 
coast is rich in colour, the perennial green of the hillside is 
deep and soft. . . . When the maple leaves begin to turn — 
autumnal Japan is the typical earthly Paradise . . . the 
country is wooded and shaded and cultivated from water's 
edge to mountain-top." According to Knapp, who "sees, 
and goes one better," Japan is " the land of dream and en- 
chantment ... a country so strangely beautiful that nature 
itself becomes an object of worship ... a country so marvel- 
lously favoured by nature ... a marvellously beautiful land 
. . . romantically beautiful . . . every crag and ravine and 
valley and cliff and shore clothed with luxuriant verdure 
. . . and the smaller isles often visions of romantic beauty 
beyond the dreams of fairyland." Hearn speaks of "the 
soft, sweet blue of its sky, the tender colour of its waters, 
the gentle splendour of its sunny days, the exquisite charm 

355 



356 IMPEESSIONS OF JAPAN 

of its interiors," and its "wonderful atmosphere." This is 
the voice of the poet in the first few pages of " Glimpses of 
Unfamiliar Japan " ; but there is a more subdued note in the 
following passages toward the end of the book. " Outside of 
parks and gardens and cultivated fields, there is singular 
absence of warmth and tenderness in the tints of verdure, 
and nowhere need you hope to find any such richness of 
green as that which makes the loveliness of an English 
lawn." With this last I certainly agree, as well as with 
the statement that " throughout the greater part of the 
year the foreground of an inland landscape is apt to be 
dull enough in the matter of colour." Even Miss Scid- 
more admits that the "low, unpainted buildings make the 
modern Japanese city monotonous and uninteresting," and 
Knapp speaks of the "grey monotony of dinginess which 
impresses the traveller in the aspect of every city, town, and 
village of the Empire." 

The appreciation of the beauties of natural scenery may 
be largely a matter of training and temperament, and poetic 
license may admit of a wide departure from facts in describ- 
ing a country; but to most people a " beautiful " country sug- 
gests trees, and there must have been a singularly rapid 
deforestation of many sections of the Main Island, where 
practically the only trees now standing are to be found 
preserved in the grounds of the temples. Lord Curzon de- 
scribes the hills of portions of Japan as "bare, arid, and un- 
inviting," and this is true of the greater part of the three 
islands of Nippon (or JVihon, or Hondo, the Main Island), 
Kyiishu, and Shikoku, which form Japan proper. Hokkaid5, 
to the north, is largely covered with virgin forests, and the 
newly acquired island of Formosa is always excluded when 
not specifically mentioned. 

Japan is, in fact, a sterile country, largely volcanic, and 
with an area about the same as that of the state of Montana, 
which is twenty per cent greater than that of the United 
Kingdom. About one-sixth of this area is cultivated, and 
practically all the available land outside of Hokkaid5 has 
already been brought under cultivation. The population 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 357 

exceeds that of the United Kingdom by about nine per 
cent. Measured through the centre of the islands from 
the southern point of Kyiishii to the northern point of 
Hokkaidd, Japan has a length of about fifteen hundred 
miles, and its greatest width is about two hundred miles. 
But it has a coast-line of over seventeen thousand miles, 
which gives it an immense variety of seaward views — and 
in these is its greatest charm. 

In the sense that England, Scotland, and France are beauti- 
ful countries, Japan can hardly be considered to deserve the 
adjective; but there are many pretty, and some beautiful, 
places scattered about the country, like plums in a pudding ; 
and there is a natural tendency to exaggerate the beauties of 
these isolated spots, on account of the great contrast with the 
monotony and unattractiveness of the surrounding country. 

In Europe, east of the Elbe, it would be difficult to point 
out as large an extent of territory containing so few natu- 
ral beauties, or to select an aggregate of so many dis- 
pleasing districts, as are to be found in the interior of Japan. 
Bearing in mind the poor roads and primitive means of loco- 
motion in a great part of Japan, there is no exaggeration in 
saying that more natural beauties can be seen in a fortnight 
on the continent of Europe, than can be seen in Japan in 
three months, and more in three months than can be seen in 
the whole Japanese Empire in a lifetime. There are moun- 
tain chains and peaks, but they are not to be compared with 
those of France or Switzerland. There are lakes, but they 
are not so beautiful as the English or the Italian lakes. 
There are forests, but they are not so pleasing as those of 
Germany. There are many pretty waterfalls in Japan, some 
of fair volume after rains, but most of them little more than 
cascades, and the rivers, as a rule, add nothing to the beauty 
of the scenery, as their beds contain very little water at most 
times, and on occasions their banks are unable to confine the 
floods. Barren hills, alternating with the level swamp of 
the paddy-fields, are monotonously common ; and the river- 
beds, containing a thread of water in a moraine of bleached 
and glistening stones, only add desolation to the scene. 



358 IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 

Japan's extended coast-line is her great scenic attraction ; 
and it was on this account that we so often submitted to the 
discomforts and inconveniences of the coasting steamers. 
But the ever changing sea can be studied in all its capricious 
moods with better satisfaction, greater comfort, and less 
expenditure of time and trouble, in British waters. The 
" Three Views " celebrated in Japanese literature are all by 
the sea, and it is on the coast that most of the natural 
beauties are to be found ; but it sometimes happens that 
the pleasure is enhanced when the observer is so placed that 
his back is to Japan and there is no land in sight. Do not 
understand this to mean that the land is devoid of beauty. 
Many a beautiful picture may be contained in an ugly frame, 
and the frame itself may be of interest for other than aes- 
thetic reasons. Even in her less pleasing aspects, nature pro- 
vides compensations. The spring landscape is brightened 
by the yellow blossom of the ahurana (rape), the fallow 
paddy-fields are beautified by the delicately-tinted rengeso 
(tragacanth), as well as the gengeJiana (clover), and the 
vivid green paddy-beds are a pleasure to the eyes, even 
although the other senses are outraged. The ripening bar- 
ley bows in rows before the gentle breezes, and blending 
colours chase each other across the undulating fields. The 
violet-blue of the sky changes to yellow and orange-red in 
the setting sun ; the blue waters of the lakes assume a tint 
of green ; the clouds gather ; the rain falls ; the moon rises 
and sets ; and the seasons, most of them wet, follow each 
other at more or less regular intervals. In fact, many of the 
beauties of an English farm are to be found in Japan, al- 
though the flocks and herds are generally absent, and horses 
are scarce. But it is not necessary to go halfway round the 
globe to enjoy these scenes ; and it is to be presumed that 
travellers on pleasure bent will have seen something of other 
parts of the world before going to Japan. Those who have 
spent their lives in one spot until they are transplanted from 
it to Japan, will, if nature appeals to them at all, find much in 
the scenery that is new and beautiful ; but those who have 
been further afield, will find less that is noteworthy as well as 




Tejiple Spokts, Japan. 




Islands at Matsushima, Japan. 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 359 

characteristic. And the scenery that is characteristic is gen- 
erally not beautiful, while that which is beautiful is generally 
not peculiar to or characteristic of Japan. 

Those scenes which are characteristic of Japanese taste, 
such as the view of the famous tree-covered sand-spit of 
Ama-no-Hashidate (one of the " Three Views "), or the cele- 
brated outlook over the mud-fiats of Waka-no-ura, are not 
such as appeal very strongly to those educated to Western 
conceptions of scenic beauty ; and it is therefore probably 
true that "no people are more capable of appreciating the 
beauties of such scenes than the Japanese." 

But there is one class of scenery characteristic of Japan, 
in the sense of being peculiar to the country and not un- 
common there. It consists of small hillocks with precipitous 
sides, dotted over a level plain or rising from shallow inlets 
of the sea. These hills are of volcanic tufa, or light, friable 
rock like compressed sand, with sides corroded by the 
streams, or water-worn by the sea, and with tops covered 
with undergrowth or fringed with trees. Where the hills 
are surrounded by paddy-fields, as is generally the case, the 
natural formation is modified by the constant removal of the 
soil from the sides and tops of the hills to spread over 
the fields. The most perfect example is Matsushima, an- 
other of the "Three Views," where the sea has encroached 
on the land, or the land been elevated in part above the sea, 
so that some of the hills rise from tiny, flat-bottomed valleys, 
and some rise as islets from the water. Similar formations 
may be found between Hodogaya and Ofuna near Yoko- 
hama, or on the way from Tokyo to Narita, or at Toba, 
where they form a small part of the panorama to be enjoyed 
from the top of Hiyori-yama ; a panorama of mountains, sea, 
and coast unequalled elsewhere in Japan. 

The third of Japan's " Most Beautiful Views " is Miya- 
jima, a wooded island in the Inland Sea. Here is the opinion 
of Miss Scidmore, after making six trips through the Inland 
Sea : " The land-locked Japanese water is a broad lake, over 
two hundred miles long, filled with islands, and sheltered by 
uneven shores. Its jagged mountains of intensest green 



360 IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 

nowhere become wild enough to disturb the dreamlike 
charms." In another place she says, "The most picturesque 
stretch of enclosed ocean, an ideal poetic region, where even 
the huge steamships seem to float enchanted, and all the sea 
and sky and shores are a day-dream." This opinion finds 
support in Mr. Gardner, who says, "We are ready to join 
the enthusiasts so far as believing that were it possible to 
multiply Lake George (admittedly the most picturesque of 
our American inland lakes) until the area equalled that 
of the Inland Sea, the latter's varied attractions would still 
hold the comparative relation of a superlative gem to an 
ordinary diamond." After crossing the Inland Sea no less 
than half a dozen times, I am obliged to confess that I failed 
to discover anything superlative about it ; and I think most 
people would find more beauty on the St. Lawrence River or 
the west coast of Scotland. 

The best scenery we saw in Japan was on the walks to 
TSnomine, to Koya-san, to the Mino cascade, to the water- 
fall of Nunobiki from Nobeoka, from Nikk5 to Chuzenji, and 
from G5do to Omama down the valley of the Watarase- 
gawa. To these must be added the Naruto Channel, the 
rapids of the Kuma-gawa, the miniature views from Tsuno- 
mine and from Kuno-zan, the more extended view from 
Nareai-ji near Ama-no-Hashidate, Tokyo Bay from Kano- 
zan, and Fuji as seen from Hakone. 

The natural attractions of the country have been too fre- 
quently spoiled by the works of man, and the primitive 
architecture has seldom enhanced the scenic effects. It is 
true that many noble groves of trees have been preserved by 
the temples ; but the dingy and decaying wooden buildings, 
neglected and going to ruin, whose torn and discoloured 
sliding screens (^shoji) give them the appearance of tattered 
beggars, spoil many a prospect ; and the tea-houses, ranging 
from mere sheds decorated with a blanket to the semi-foreign 
inns, are unpleasantly prominent at every turn. 

Away from the railways travelling is slow and uncom- 
fortable, owing to the system of road-making and repairing 
which is general throughout the country. Roads are not 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 361 

properly drained or ballasted, and the making of a good 
macadamised surface is practically unknown. The founda- 
tions of road and embankment are of clay and dirt, with an 
upper lajev of rounded stones and coarse gravel Q'ari} 
thrown loosely over the top. This is almost immediately 
converted into ruts and holes, and although the roads are 
levelled from time to time with similar materials, they are 
usually ankle-deep with mud in wet weather or dust in dry 
weather. 

There are only about twenty thousand miles of state and 
prefectural roads in the whole country, and of this less than 
a quarter are state roads ; but it might prove of great ad- 
vantage to the country to employ on these roads a few 
French road-makers, to show how a road should be built and 
maintained. There is, of course, this objection against broken 
stones for road-making, that so much of the produce of the 
country is carried on the backs of men that it is more im- 
portant to provide a surface that will not wound a bare foot 
than one that will give a level surface for wheels. In fact, 
there are parts, even of the Tokaido, over which a wheel has 
never turned. 

Under the most favourable circumstances, you cannot count 
upon doing more than fifty miles in a day by jinrikisha or 
basha; and in walking you will be limited by the pace of 
your luggage coolies, which will never exceed twenty-five 
miles a day. 

Another matter of consideration is the climate, which is 
wetter than England, and subject to much greater variations 
of temperature. Like the United Kingdom, the Japanese 
Empire is warmed by a great ocean current, and the Black 
Stream (Jcuroshio) has a similar ameliorating influence on 
the Japanese climate to that of the Gulf Stream on the 
climate of the British Isles. But Japan covers a great 
many degrees of latitude ; and the Main Island alone ex- 
tends through eight degrees, or say the distance from New 
York to Charleston, South Carolina. It is curious in this 
connection to note that no two geographical divisions of the 
earth's surface have so many genera of trees in common as 



362 IMPKESSIONS OF JAPAN 

Japan and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. The 
annual range of temperature in T6ky5 is from about 22° to 
94° F. The coldest months are January and February, the 
hottest, August. There are practically two seasons in Japan : 
the cold season, from the middle of October to the middle 
of March, and the rainy season, from the middle of March 
to the middle of October. The light construction of Japa- 
nese houses makes them too cold for comfort in the winter 
season ; and in July and August, when boots and pieces 
of leather luggage are covered in a few hours with mould, 
and gloves are ruined with mildew, when matches refuse 
to strike and clothes refuse to dry, the hot, damp climate of 
the coast, where you may have a driving " Scotch mist " com- 
bined with a temperature of over 80°, renders all travelling 
unpleasant. 

These are also the months for typhoons at sea and floods 
on the land. April, May, and June are the favourite months 
for tourists ; and during these months you can count upon 
showers every other day, and a steady downpour of rain for 
two days in the week. Tokyo, which is an exceptionally dry 
place, had, in 1899, 153 days upon which some rain fell, and 
the total depth of rainfall was about 65 inches, against an 
average of about 25 inches for London. But on the west 
coast of Japan some stations recorded over 250 rainy days ; 
and in places on the south coast over 130 inches of rain fell. 
However, we disregarded the weather, and, except in the 
mountains, it was never allowed to interfere with our plans. 

There is one matter that no traveller in Japan can shut 
his eyes or close his nose to. Call it the " Smell of the 
East " if you will, agree that it can never be entirely done 
away with if you like, but the fact remains that the sternest 
necessity has imposed upon the Japanese a system of agricul- 
ture which is a serious detriment to the tourist's enjoyment^ 
and a constant menace to the health of the inhabitants. In 
order to support a large population upon a limited area of 
cultivable land, the most intense husbandry is practised- 
There are no sheep, goats, or pigs ; and, as compared with 
the United Kingdom, there are only three-quarters of the 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 363 

number of horses, and just one-tenth the number of cattle. 
As a consequence, the principal manure is night-soil, and the 
collection, transportation, and distribution of this fertiliser 
is disgusting in the extreme. In order to facilitate its col- 
lection the closets in many of the rural districts are at the 
front of the house, on the roadside ; and at all times of the 
day coolies are engaged in conveying the liquid manure to 
the fields. Over forty per cent of the cultivated area is ter- 
raced for the growing of rice ; and from April to October 
the odour of the swampy paddy-fields is offensive to a 
degree. If the official who introduced the earth-closet into 
Ceylon could be secured by Japan for a similar service, a 
wonderful improvement might be made. 

The Japanese are said to have an exceptionally well-devel- 
oped sense of smell, and to delight in perfume parties where 
they display keenness in detecting mixed perfumes and deli- 
cate odours. Be this as it may, they seem invulnerable to 
evil smells, and take no notice of this most common variety, 
nor of the rotten fish used largely as manure. For this 
purpose the use of animal bone, oil-cake, and phosphates 
is increasing ; but the effort recently made by the Chilian 
government to introduce the use of nitrates was not suc- 
cessful. Part of the straw from the previous year's crop, 
which has been stacked around neighbouring trees and posts 
during the winter, is also worked into the ground. 

An extensive system of irrigation is necessary for rice cul- 
tivation ; and far up in the mountain valleys the streams are 
diverted to the terraced paddy-fields, and flow through them 
by degrees to the lower plains, where the noria, or Persian 
water-wheel, worked by a treadmill, overcomes slight differ- 
ences in levels, and long well-sweeps are used for greater 
elevations. But during the period of rice cultivation the 
streams are polluted, and the water carries contagion to the 
consumers. The death rate is not abnormally high in Japan; 
but dysentery, diphtheria, and enteric fever are in places 
endemic as well as epidemic. Dysentery is most rife, and 
accounts for over half of the cases of, and deaths from, 
infectious diseases. 



364 IMPEESSIONS OF JAPAH 

" Their very farming is artistic gardening," says Miss 
Scidmore. Hardly. But the production of rice is eminently 
satisfactory, averaging 28.3 bushels an acre as against 930 
pounds or 15.5 bushels in India and 797 pounds or 13.3 
bushels harvested in the United States. The paddy or 
uncleaned rice must be milled as well as thrashed ; and the 
United States Department of Agriculture recommends the 
importation of Kyiishii rice for seed " on account of its high 
milling average and absence of broken grain." 

Cereals are absolutely "grown by hand." We saw some 
being planted in rows. Each grain was dropped into a hole 
made with the finger, liquid manure poured over it with a 
dipper, and the earth pressed down with the hand. When 
the barley was receiving the last manuring in May, beans 
were in a like manner planted between the rows; and in this 
way three different crops are, by dint of frequent dressing, 
made to grow during the year on the same field. We saw 
barley harvested toward the end of May in the country 
around Fuji-yama ; and both wheat and barley in the coun- 
try north of Nikko about the middle of June. The grain 
was pulled up by the roots, which were cut off with a short 
reaping-hook. Then it was " headed " by being put through 
a large iron comb or rake set with the points up, and after- 
ward, instead of being thrashed, as is general, even in Japan, 
beaten with a mallet having a wedge-shaped head with cor- 
rugated surface. The winnowing is sometimes done with a 
sieve ; but more commonly by holding a wicker tray over 
the head and shaking it so that the grain falls straight to the 
ground, and the chaff is blown to one side. The average 
product per acre, which exceeds thirty bushels in Great Britain, 
is in Japan about eighteen bushels of wheat, twenty of rye, or 
twenty-five of barley. The acreage of these cereals, together 
with peas, potatoes, and millet, is about equal to the acreage 
of rice alone. In some few localities two crops of cereals 
and one of rice are harvested in twelve months from one 
field ; and in the south of Shikoku two crops of rice may be 
grown during the year. 

The rice swamps are a further cause of annoyance, as the 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 365 

breeding-place of the mosquito, which during half the year 
infests the plains and the hills up to an elevation of nearly 
two thousand feet. Here they give way to the huyu, a species 
of gnat which is extremely unpleasant. If the tourist escapes 
from these pests, he must resign himself to the tender mercies 
of the fleas. The swamps are also the habitation of the bull- 
frog, whose strident croak competes with the ceaseless chirp 
of the cicadcB (semz), those ubiquitous " tree-crickets," whose 
note, like a knife being ground on a wheel, is the most char- 
acteristic sound of the country, and is the first you hear before 
landing, and almost the last' before you depart. 

A Japanese newspaper plaintively asks : " Why do those 
who write about our country either laud or decry us ? Why no 
middle course? " The fact is, that those who have found their 
reward in lavishing unstinted praise upon everything Japa- 
nese, have somewhat overshot the mark; and there is an inev- 
itable disappointment in store for the visitors who have been 
led, by what they have read, to anticipate too much. This dis- 
appointment is so general that I took the trouble to note the 
opinions of fellow-travellers ; and while one or two preferred 
to " damn with faint praise," the impressions of the rest may 
be epitomised in the following expressions used. " Most 
overrated country," said one; " Japan fearfully overwritten," 
said another ; " Most things a fraud," declared a third ; 
and a friend who had come prepared to stay two years in 
Japan, said at the end of two months that he was " glad to 
get away from it." One fellow-traveller was "very disap- 
pointed as regards neatness and cleanliness of people," and 
another found them " dirty, stupid, and dishonest." 

Some of these views are undoubtedly not entirely just ; 
but it is unreasonable to expect that the casual visitor should 
find in Japan the full extent of the charm discovered by the 
poet or the philosopher, or the Elysium described by the 
teachers and the missionaries. The license of the poet may 
justify the laudations of Sir Edwin Arnold ; and the admira- 
ble standpoint for an independent study of Western thought 
which Japan affords, may warrant the delightful detachment 
of Laf cadio Hearn ; while the position of influence and social 



366 IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 

consideration accorded to teachers, and the physical comfort 
and intellectual toleration found by missionaries in Japan, 
may account for their roseate vision. 

In the face of such authorities there is, in some, an indis- 
position to give expression to criticism ; and these authorities 
get support from another class, represented by the bright 
little American woman who confessed to being dreadfully 
disappointed with her visit. " But," she said, " for months 
before I left, my friends envied me my intended voyage ; 
and I shall keep that feeling alive by the most glowing 
accounts of all I have seen and done. If I did otherwise, 
they would cease to be envious ; and would doubt both my 
taste and judgment." 

The gay bachelors who expect to enjoy in Japan the 
pleasures of a Mohammedan Paradise are doomed to further 
disillusionment. One of these, who frankly confessed that he 
had come to Japan for no other reason than the accounts he 
had read of the joro, and who had serious ideas of taking 
up his residence there permanently, declared after a few 
weeks that he had " had enough of them." With but one 
exception every bachelor I questioned, whether resident or 
visitor, expressed similar disappointment. One of the former 
declared he had " no use for them as ' wife ' or in less regular 
relations " ; and another resident, a German, said " They make 
me nothing." But the resident bachelors all agree that the 
Japanese women can be recommended as housekeepers, if not 
as mistresses. The one friend who was not disappointed, 
but found them charming, had a subjective reason for his 
favourable opinion, as he was able to overcome with them a 
shyness which had previously made him subject to the incon- 
venience experienced on one occasion by the hero of Belot's 
novel, " La Bouche de Madame X . . . ." 

Netto's sneering description of the various types of globe- 
trotters leaves out of account one very important fact, which 
makes itself clear to the traveller who goes to Japan for 
pleasure and becomes interested in the country and people 
as well as in the abundant literature concerning them. The 
tourist finds that the scholars, teachers, and missionaries 



IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 367 

resident in Japan are prone to take too favourable a view 
and to idealise both Japan and the Japanese in their books ; 
just as the resident merchants are apt to express too unfavour- 
able a view of both in their conversation ; while it is in the 
writings of such " globe-trotters " as Curzon, Henry Norman, 
and Rudyard Kipling that there is to be found a happier 
medium and a more just appreciation. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

Yokohama to Honolulu. Honolulu. Sea-bathing. The Punch Bowl. 
Music and Flowers. The Pali. Poi. Sugar. Missionaries. Mos- 
quitoes. Panama Hats. Mauna Loa in Eruption. " The Palace of 
the Sun." Maui. Hawaii. Hilo. The Road to the Volcano 
House. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. Fruit. Captain Cook. Kauai. 
The Hula-Hula. Annexation. A Luau. The Voyage to San 
Francisco. English Sociability. 

Fourteen weeks after we had cast anchor at Nagasaki 
I left Japan on the Oity of Peking. The distance from 
Yokohama to Honolulu is given as 3440 miles, but the ship's 
log only recorded 3396 miles between the two ports, and 
made the voyage in eleven days and six hours, in spite of a 
typhoon which struck us on the fourth day out, and reduced 
the run from 325 knots to 255. This storm raged all of one 
day and night with a violence which gave no rest or sleep to 
officers or passengers and reached its height the next morn- 
ing, when a green sea came aboard which threatened to carry 
away the Social Hall on the upper deck. This was, how- 
ever, the final effort and by dinner-time both wind and 
waves had fallen considerably. 

We crossed the 180° of longitude on Wednesday, 19th of 
July, between 12 and 1 p.m., and therefore had another 
Wednesday, 19th of July, the following day. Fortunately it 
was nobody's birthday nor was it a Sunday ; but we were 
brought to realise the importance of the 180° when we reached 
Honolulu, where we found that, whereas we had left London 
for the Far East, we were now returning from the Far West ; 
and that " the east " in the Hawaiian Islands, as well as in 
the Western states from California to the Rocky Mountains, 
meant Chicago and New York. 

368 




z ffi 



O t3 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 369 

The next Saturda}^ we sighted Mount Waialeale, the cen- 
tral peak of Kauai, and in the afternoon were abeam of the 
cliffs, which rise eight hundred to fifteen hundred feet, on 
the coast of this island, which is the most westerly of the 
eight larger islands of the Hawaiian group. At 7 P.M. we 
were off Kaena Point, the western extremity of Oahu Island, 
which is sixty-one miles from the nearest point of Kauai; 
and three hours later we cast anchor inside the coral reef of 
Honolulu harbour, situated on the southern coast of Oahu in 
the bight between Barber's Point to the west and Diamond 
Head to the east. Owing to the prevalence of the plague 
at Hong Kong we had to pass a critical medical examina- 
tion and were not permitted to leave the ship until Sunday 
morning. 

After the monotony of an eleven days' voyage across the 
Pacific one is prepared to grant in advance that the 
Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands are entitled to be called 
the " Pearl " or the " Paradise of the Pacific " ; and it does 
not require a long acquaintance with the many physical and 
social delights that are offered to all who seek these hospita- 
ble shores to concede that they have fairly earned these 
appellations. Favoured by nature with an ideal climate and 
with a soil that yields the flowers and fruits of both the tem- 
perate and tropical zones, abounding in scenes that charm 
with their beauty as well as those that are unique for their 
grandeur, the Hawaiian Islands are preeminent as a sanato- 
rium and as a recreation ground for the man of leisure and 
the traveller. The nearest port with a mail service is San 
Francisco, twenty-one hundred miles away, and there is no 
cable communication between the islands or with the outer 
world, so that the worries and strifes of modern life are only 
faintly echoed here ; and one finds as complete a rest and as 
intimate social intercourse as on board ship, combined with 
every comfort and luxury. 

In spite of its enterprising business men and its consider- 
able trade in sugar, Honolulu, the " Capital City," is one of 
the few places where "you can be lazy and not be ashamed." 
You realise the contrast between the habits of the residents 

2b 



370 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

— wlio possess besides a capital telephone service a cab ser- 
vice as cheap as that of London and use it for the shortest 
distances — and those of an English colony where every 
form of sport and exercise is encouraged ; but the residents 
of Hawaii laugh, eat, and grow fat, or at best take their 
constitutionals on horseback, the fair sex sensibly seated 
astride in breeches and apron or clothed in the long, flow- 
ing native trousers that almost sweep the ground. Some of 
the roads are very good, while others are being improved 
and extended ; and there is a certain amount of bicycling. 
The circuit of Oahu may be easily made on a " wheel " in 
two days, and can be done in one. 

But the favourite amusement in Honolulu is the sea- 
bathing. Honolulu extends along the coast from the Kalihi 
Valley behind the Bishop Museum to Diamond Head, — an 
extinct volcano 765 feet above the sea at its highest point, — 
nearly six miles to the southeast, and about halfway begins 
the beach of Waikiki, an attraction sufficient in itself to 
make any place famous. The coral reef which surrounds 
the island forms a barrier to sharks and surf, and the gentle 
waves roll in over warm, smooth sands free from danger or 
discomfort. The ordinary tides only rise and fall two feet 
and the highest spring tides only four feet, so that one can 
bathe not only all day and every day but also at night, and 
moonlight bathing-parties lend an air of romance peculiar to 
Waikiki. The range of the thermometer in January is 
between 56° and 81° F., and in July between 67° and 85°. 
During ten days in August in my room at the Hawaiian 
Hotel, with doors and windows always open, the extremes 
were 77° and 83°. As the night is always cooler than the 
day, the sea-water always feels warmer than the air when 
you go for a moonlight plunge. 

No sooner had our steamer made fast to the wharf, and our 
luggage been passed through the customs and handed over 
to the hotel porters, than a party of us chartered a hack and 
started off for Waikiki. On the way we saw the Judiciary 
Building with its clock tower, and the bronze statue of 
Kamehameha I. in front ; the Executive Building, originally 




2 >= 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 371 

called lolani Palace, standing in its own grounds ; and then 
Kapiolani Park and the "race-track." We stopped for 
lunch at "Sans Souci," a restaurant on the beach, — some- 
what in disrepute we afterward heard from the better class of 
residents. However, this did not spoil our appetites, inter- 
fere with our digestions, or prevent our enjoying a capital 
luncheon. 

In the afternoon we drove around Honolulu which, for a town 
of only thirty thousand inhabitants, covers a large area. Of 
this number nearly a third are Asiatics, most of them herded 
together in the small space covered by Chinatown ; while 
Portuguese-town accommodates three or four thousand peo- 
ple. The native Hawaiians number considerably over eleven 
thousand, and the pure whites under five thousand. It is 
the last two classes that own most of the delightful houses 
surrounded with flower-gardens and ornamental trees. Here 
you may see chrysanthemums, magnolias, the flaming cactus, 
the passion-vine, the florabunda with its bell-shaped flower 
ten inches in length, roses, and all the common flowers of an 
English garden; as well as such trees as the tamarind, 
mango, fig, eucalyptus, banyan, monkey-pod, date, and royal 
palm. Some of these are indigenous to the islands, but most 
have been introduced. Of the latter the most common as 
well as most useful is the algeroba, which bears a heavy crop 
of nutritious beans highly valued as a food for cattle. In 
the Mission garden in Fort Street still stands the progenitor 
of the species, said to have been planted in 1837. It is difli- 
cult now to realise that the island of Oahu was ever treeless 
and bare, as we are told it was a century ago. 

There is an excellent road to drive up to the summit of 
the Punch Bowl, an extinct volcano about five hundred feet 
high, lying back of the town ; and here we went to get a 
bird's-eye view of Honolulu straggling out in one direction, 
southeast to Diamond Head, five miles away in a straight 
line, and in the other fading into the country beyond the 
Museum toward Pearl River Harbour, beyond which the 
view extended over fields of sugar-cane to Barber's Point, a 
spur from the Waianae Mountains. At our feet was the city 



372 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

concealed in foliage from which peeped the top of the palace, 
the Judiciary Building, the High School, and Oahu College. 
King Street could be traced following the direction of the 
coast, and at right angles to it Fort Street with its shops, 
while in front was the harbour, full of shipping safely at 
anchor within the coral reef, not far from its narrow opening 
into the great Pacific. Behind, Mount Tantalus reared its 
head two thousand feet above the sea, and some of us walked 
up to the summit to get the more extended view, including, 
in the direction of Diamond Head, the island of Molokai, 
over thirty miles away, and beyond it the dim outlines of the 
mountains on Maui. 

The Hawaiians have two ruling passions, — music and 
flowers. These, combined with a generous hospitality, are 
not only joys to themselves, but delights to every visitor. 
In the old days of the native government the legislature 
always adjourned on " steamer-day," and all Honolulu, or at 
any rate the wives and daughters, flocked to the wharf (where 
the official band played selections of the plaintive native 
melodies) to decorate their departing friends and acquaint- 
ances with leis — garlands of flowers to hang round the neck 
and to twine round hat and waist — and to say " Oloha.^^ 

And so we followed the beautiful native custom and 
decorated those who were leaving us to go on to San Fran- 
cisco ; and then came from romance face to face with 
reality at our hotel. It being past 7 o'clock and a Sunday 
night there was no hot dinner to be had, while the bar was 
closed and nothing could be got to drink but water. Per- 
haps this is the only trace of Puritanism that can be dis- 
covered in all Hawaii ; but it was annoying to stumble on it 
the first day. We consoled ourselves after our frugal repast 
by walking out to see the night-blooming cereus which 
covers the stone wall of Oahu College on Punahou Street, 
and by listening to the melodious chatter of the native 
maidens. There are only twelve letters in the Hawaiian 
language, — the five vowels and the letters H, K, L, M, 
N, P, W. The vowels are pronounced as in German, 
but there the resemblance ceases ; for nothing softer and 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 373 

pleasanter to the ear can be imagined than the sounds that 
come from the lips of the dusky belles of Honolulu. We 
finished the evening at the Pacific Club, whose kind hos- 
pitality we enjoyed during our entire stay; but we found 
that more of the members were to be met there at the 
luncheon hour than at any other time. 

We made up in the morning for our abstinence of the 
previous evening by enjoying an American breakfast, con- 
sisting of codfish balls, corned-beef hash, chipped beef in 
cream, waffles, and hot cakes ; and finished our cigars while 
driving up Nuuanu Avenue to the Mausoleum of the Kame- 
hameha dynasty and of the last native king, Kalakaua, From 
the cemetery the road goes up the valley to the Pali, six 
miles from the hotel. The Pali (or precipice) is twelve 
hundred feet above the sea, in a cleft of the Koolau Moun- 
tains, between two peaks that rise almost perpendicularly 
on either side another sixteen hundred and nineteen hundred 
feet respectively. The precipitous side facing the northeast 
looks over a thickly cultivated country, sloping down to 
the sea, as far as Makapuu Point; and at the time when 
Kamehameha, nearly 120 years ago, drove his defeated 
enemies over the cliff, there was no road down the preci- 
pice. But modern engineering has overcome the difficulty 
and carved out of the sides of the mountains a good carriage 
road with easy grades, over which some of the wealthiest of 
Honolulu's business men drive daily between their offices 
and country villas. The change from the restricted view 
coming up the valley to the magnificent panorama sud- 
denly displayed on reaching the top of the Pali is a startling 
one ; and the edge must be approached with some caution, 
for the trade wind rushes through the gap and threatens 
to carry away hats, handkerchiefs, and anything else loosely 
carried. After returning we devoted the afternoon to an 
inspection of the curiosities preserved in the Bishop Museum, 
and lingered long over the brilliant royal robe composed of 
the feathers of countless birds and preserved with religious 
care. 

Another day was occupied in visiting the property and 



374 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

mill of the Oahu Sugar Company. We went from Honolulu 
about fourteen miles to Waipahu by the narrow-gauge rail- 
way of the Oahu Railway and Land Company, which has 
constructed a line along the coast to Kahuku near the most 
northern extremity of the island, and trains stopping at every 
station on the way do the seventy-one miles in exactly three 
hours. 

Shortly after leaving Honolulu the road runs through a 
succession of rice-fields, cultivated exclusively by Chinese, 
then through banana plantations, followed by fields of taro, 
whose leaves resemble the water-lily, and whose long, oblong 
roots form the favourite food of the natives. It is eaten 
fried or boiled, like a potato, and is of a bluish white colour, 
with a taste similar to squash. Pounded up raw in a wooden 
mortar it is made into a thick paste called poi^ and no Ha- 
waiian meal is complete without poi served in calabashes, 
into which it is the native custom to dip the fingers and so 
transfer it to the mouth. Delmonico's famous chef Filippini 
gives the following recipe for preparing poi : — 

" The taro is cooked in the ground, after the manner of a jSTow Eng- 
land clam-bake, and after attaining the softness of a cooked potato it is 
peeled and beaten with a large stone or iron made for the purpose, into a 
pulp. It is then mixed with water until it forms the thickness of paste 
(and which makes very good paste, as it is often used for sticking bills, 
etc., when a theatrical Company arrives), and after standing for a few 
days, to allow it to ferment, it is ready to be eaten." 

The latter half of the journey lay along the shores of the 
Pearl Harbour Lochs, where the United States government 
proposes to establish a coaling station. The Lochs afford 
unlimited anchorage for vessels of the deepest draught, but 
the bar at the entrance will have to be dredged, and the 
channel kept clear. To the north and west of Pearl City 
the fields of sugar extend to the foot-hills, and six miles 
away to the southwest is the Ewa plantation, — the largest 
in the Hawaiian Islands. The four largest of the islands 
are divided by ranges of mountains into windward and lee- 
ward sides ; the latter, protected from the northeast trade 
winds, receiving an average of only 20 inches of rain per 




P o 
o '^ 

O (D 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 375 

annum, while the former receives 150 inches. Before arte- 
sian wells were sunk nearly all the sugar-cane, which 
requires abundance of water, was grown on the windward 
side, and depended on the natural rainfall. The Ewa and 
the Oahu plantations are on the leeward side, and are irri- 
gated with water from a number of wells. At one of the 
Avells on the latter, engines of 1250 horse-power were work- 
ing when we visited it. It has been found that cane grown 
on land regularly supplied with water by artificial means yields 
more sugar per acre than cane depending on the natural rain- 
fall, and the average yield on the various islands varies accord- 
ing to the proportion of artificially watered cane grown on 
the leeward side. 

On Hawaii, which is the largest island and produces the 
most sugar, the yield is about four tons per acre ; on Kauai, 
the fourth in size, and second in production, the yield is 
nearly a ton more ; on Maui, the second in size, and third in 
output, the cane only gives three and one-half tons of sugar ; 
but on Oahu, third in area and fourth in output, the average 
runs up to nearly seven tons of sugar per acre, and excep- 
tional fields have been known to yield over double this 
amount of sugar per acre of cane. 

The constituents of the soil are most carefully studied, 
and special fertilisers are prepared to suit each plantation. 
The ground is prepared in the most thorough manner, and 
the planting season is from June to November. Plant canes 
are grown from a joint cut from the top of the cane. Rat- 
toon canes are those allowed to grow from the short stalks 
left after a field has been cut. . Once started, the cane grows 
about a foot a month, and is hoed regularly during eight or 
nine months, and trashed, to free the ground from rats and 
other vermin. At the end of eighteen months the cane is 
ready to cut. 

On the Oahu sugar estate the cane, shorn of its leaves, 
which are burnt, is brought direct to the mill by a system of 
railways running through the plantation. From the railway 
trucks it is thrown on to an endless travelling carrier, on each 
side of which stands a man with a chopper, to cut off the 



376 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

protruding ends. The cane is delivered by the carrier to a 
pair of cutting rollers, which bite it into small pieces, and 
then passes through three sets of pressure rolls, which squeeze 
out all the juice, and the dry bits of mashed-up cane travel 
direct to the furnaces, and are utilised as fuel. The juice, 
after being strained free of all woody matter, is pumped to 
the evaporating pans. From these it goes to the vacuum 
pans, then to the crystallisers, and finally to the centrifugals, 
from which the sugar runs into bags at the other end of the 
mill. Cane put in at one end of the mill will be converted, 
in the course of about seven hours, into brown sugar, which 
is at once shipped to San Francisco to be refined. To pro- 
duce one ton of sugar seven tons of cane are required, so that 
the Oahu mill, which has a capacity of 150 tons of sugar a 
day, can dispose of over a thousand tons of cane. On Kauai 
the sugar is produced by the newer diffusion process. 

The fifty plantations working in 1899 in the Hawaiian 
Islands produced over 280,000 tons, and the value of this 
sugar, nearly all of which went to the United States, 
accounted for ninety-seven per cent of the exports. Rice is 
the second in export value. In the previous year, during 
the Spanish- American war, the States imported from Hawaii 
more sugar, in value, if not in weight, than from any other 
country. The mill-hands employed are mostly Europeans, 
and twelve hours' work is required. In the fields ten hours 
make a day's work, and the field labourers are mostly 
Asiatics. About six thousand Chinese and thirty thousand 
Japanese were working on the plantations in 1899, and the 
latter were being brought over in thousands under contract. 
These coolies get .£3 a month; and the Japanese live on 
about £1, the Chinese require about £2, while a European 
can save anything he earns above ,£2:8:0 a month. The 
Chinese and the Japanese do not get on very well, and where 
they are employed together there is always sure to be some 
pilikia (trouble or row). Neither are allowed to vote, and 
neither would value such political rights unless they could 
be bartered or sold. 

The Chinese women in the Sandwich Islands are more 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 377 

prolific tlian the Japanese, but taken together the Asiatic 
mothers only bring forth half as many children as the 
Hawaiians and Portuguese. The mortality of infants is 
moderate among the Asiatics, but amongst Hawaiians of 
pure blood it reaches the enormous proportion of forty per 
cent of the births. Japanese coolies were being imported 
at the rate of a thousand a month, the proportion of females 
to males arriving being as three to eleven. The total popu- 
lation, 109,000 in 1896, had increased to 154,000 when 
United States territorial government was established, 14th 
June, 1900. 

If missionaries have been a doubtful blessing in some 
other countries, they have done only good in these islands. 
Their work was begun in 1820, the year after the death of 
Kamehameha L, and has continued to bear "good fruit, 
although ancient superstitions are not entirely dead, and 
everybody is not a church-goer. The missionaries devised a 
sort of Mother Hubbard dress called a Jiolohu for the naked 
native women, and the latter in their turn have imposed the 
fashion on the white women who arrived afterward. The 
holoku has the primitive charm of looking comfortable. The 
missionaries were the original teachers, but there is now a 
system of public schools, and a law for the compulsory 
education of every child from five to fifteen years of age. 
This law has had a most extraordinary and, one would think, 
unexpected effect, if the following, from a local guide-book, 
is to be credited : " As a result, the proportion of illiterate 
persons horn in Hawaii is probably smaller than in any other 
country." The italics are mine. 

Although the Hawaiians are of the same race as the 
natives of the Samoan Islands, the latter are over twenty-two 
hundred miles away in the South Pacific, while the Hawaiian 
Islands are in the North Pacific just within the tropics, and 
in about the same latitude as the island of Cuba. 

There are no snakes here, while rats and spiders are more 
of a nuisance to the residents than to the travellers ; but the 
ubiquitous mosquito seems to present his bill to strangers 
only, and insists upon an immediate draft. There is a Call- 



378 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

fornian insecticide called Buhach to be procured in Hono- 
lulu, which is useful for indoor purposes. It comes in 
the form of a powder, which is laid on a plate and burnt. 
The odour is not unpleasant, but the mosquito thinks differ- 
ently and promptly leaves by any door or window open for 
his escape, and when the last mosquito has departed you 
close the openings and enjoy his absence. 

We found our pith helmets unnecessary, as sunstrokes are 
unknown in Hawaii ; but we invested in " Panama " hats, 
for which Honolulu is a great market. These hats were first 
made 275 years ago in Ecuador, and the present centre of 
production in that country is Jipijapa (pronounced hipy- 
hapa) in the province of Manavi. The material is a species 
of cane grass, and can only be worked at night, say from 
midnight to 7 A.M., and it requires three to five months' 
labour, working three hours a night, to produce one of the 
finest " hipy-hapas," worth about <£10 on the spot. Poorer 
qualities vary in value down to about three shillings apiece. 

On the 2nd of July, 1899, the summit crater of the volcano 
of Mauna Loa was discovered to be in eruption, and as soon 
as the steamers brought in word to Honolulu there was a 
rush to the Island of Hawaii to witness the phenomenon. 
One of the most successful parties left the Volcano House 
on July 14, penetrated close to the outbreak, which was 
found to be at an elevation of 10,820 or nearly three 
thousand feet below the summit, followed the lava flow from 
its source to the end of its advance, and sent back details to 
the local papers. They described the active crater to be a 
newly formed cone, two hundred to three hundred feet in 
diameter at the base, one hundred feet in diameter at the 
top, two hundred feet high, and split open on one side half- 
way down. The cone was full of molten lava to the level 
of the split, and masses of it were being shot up two hundred 
feet in the air, or one hundred feet above the top of the cone. 
Rushing through the split was a molten river fifty feet wide 
surging down between banks twenty feet high at the rate of 
thirty miles an hour, and falling eighty feet in the first four 
hundred feet of its course, which Avas nearly east at first and 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 379 

then turned north to the watershed between Mauna Loa and 
Mauna Kea. Four miles from the cone the stream was 
running ten to twelve miles an hour, and ten miles away it 
still showed red and fiery in the daylight and continued in a 
well-defined course, but was gradually narrowing and slack- 
ening to a mile or so an hour, and was advancing with a face 
twenty feet high. As the lava cooled, it assumed the 
twisted, ropey, shining appearance called pahoehoe, but 
soon disintegrated into the scoria known as a-a. 

The volcano was reported to be still active on July 20, 
and likely to continue indefinitely, so we booked the first 
vacant berths by the steamboat Kinau, leaving Honolulu 
at noon one Tuesday. The boat was crowded, but we 
made the best of it, and enjoyed the fresh breeze and the 
choppy seas we met after Diamond Head was astern and we 
had passed Koko Head, nine miles from Honolulu. The 
Kaiwi Channel between Oahu and Molokai is twenty-three 
miles wide, and it is a bad twenty-three miles for those sub- 
ject to seasickness. Molokai, which is the fourth of the 
group in size and population, is about forty miles from east 
to west, and about seven wide. The celebrated leper settle- 
ment is on the northern coast, which is mostly high preci- 
pices, at Kalanpapa, on a grassy plain which slopes down to 
the sea from the foot of precipices fully a thousand feet 
high, so that the settlement is entirely cut off from the rest 
of the island. Spotted deer, descended from some pre- 
sented by the Emperor of Japan, are still to be seen on 
Molokai. 

We passed through the Paitolo Channel, which runs 
between Molokai and Lanai, the latter, which ranks after 
Molokai in population and size, being simply one great sheep 
ranch, nineteen miles long by ten miles wide. The same 
channel divides Molokai from Maui, and the distance across 
is, in each case, about eight miles. We came down the lee- 
ward side of Maui during the night, stopping at Lahaina and 
Maalaea. 

But we had previously seen the setting sun on the summit 
of Haleakala, which rises from the centre of East Maui to 



380 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

just over ten thousand feet above the sea. " The Palace of 
the Sun," as the natives call it, is said to be " the greatest 
extinct volcano in the world," but this requires considerable 
qualification. It is not the highest extinct volcano, nor the 
one with the greatest circumference of crater ; but it may be 
the greatest in capacity, for its crater is twenty miles in cir- 
cumference, and at least two thousand feet deep, — big enough 
to swallow the whole of London, Paris, and New York 
combined. 

There is fine scenery on Maui to reward the traveller on 
horseback, and that of the lao Valley is perhaps the most 
vaunted. And the enterprising observer may secure speci- 
mens of the Alpine " silver-sword," whose dark red flower 
forms such a pretty contrast to the leaves covered with sil- 
very down. Maui, with 760 square miles, is the second 
island in size, and the third in population ; Oahu, with 600 
square miles, being third in size but first in the number of 
inhabitants ; while Hawaii, which is second when noses are 
counted, has an area of 4210 square miles, or greater than all 
the others put together. 

They were ploughing on Maui large tracts of land prepara- 
tory to planting sugar-cane, and the red dust was blown off 
the land in a great cloud, and fell on the deck like a dry 
rain, and we congratulated ourselves on having had a view 
of Haleakala before we ran into this view-destroyer. "We 
steamed through the channel between Maui and Kahoolawe, 
which is the smallest of the Hawaiian Islands, except some 
dozen uninhabited guano islands belonging to the group. It 
is only fourteen by six miles, and is used exclusively to pas- 
ture sheep and cattle. 

The Alenuihoho Channel between Maui and Hawaii is 
twenty-six miles, which we crossed in the early morning, and 
stopped during the forenoon at Mahukona, near the northern 
extremity of Hawaii. From here there is a small railway 
which twists and wriggles itself up to the Kohala sugar- 
growing regions. Then we steamed down the leeward 
coast of Hawaii to Kawaihae and back past Mahukona, 
round Opolo Point, and down the windward side. In the 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 381 

afternoon we were coasting along the base of great precipi- 
tous cliffs, one thousand feet or more in height, supporting 
a sloping table-land covered with plantations and sending 
down to the sea in cascades and waterfalls scores of narrow 
streams, — a veritable Lauterbrunnen. Two grand valleys 
break the line of cliffs. One is the Waimanu Valley, 
between whose walls, which are in places 2500 feet high, 
the great Kamehameha was born; the other is called the 
Waipio Valley. At dusk we stopped at Laupahoehoe, a 
difficult landing-place at the mouth of a deep gulch, 
approached through sharp reefs, and at 10 p.m. anchored 
in Hilo harbour and went ashore in small boats. 

The distance from Honolulu is only 195 knots direct ; but 
owing to the frequent stoppages, all at open roadsteads 
where passengers' luggage and freight had to be landed and 
taken aboard from whale-boats, it took us fully thirty-three 
hours to make the 230 knots steamed by the route we came. 
The native sailors, who man these whale-boats, lower them 
from the davits, carry out the transhipments, and haul the 
boats aboard, are extremely smart in their work ; but they 
dress, act, and shout as they please and seem to be under 
absolutely no discipline. Perhaps they have the same sensi- 
tiveness as the striking workmen in Honolulu, who recently 
issued a manifesto in which they declare that they "are 
gentlemen and expect to be treated as such." 

Of Hilo's two lions, Cocoanut Island with its fringe of 
palms on the east side of Hilo Bay, about a mile from the 
town, is the principal one, and we had the advantage of first 
seeing this famous picnic ground by moonlight. The other is 
Rainbow Falls, a pretty spot about the same distance from the 
post-office as Cocoanut Island, but in the opposite direction. 

The rush to see Mauna Loa in eruption had overcrowded 
the accommodations of the town, and at the Hilo Hotel they 
were putting four people in a room and two in a bed. One 
of us preempted the bathroom, and another the barber-shop, 
which we held tenaciously until the manager capitulated and 
gave us his own room with a bed and a cot. We made a 
dash to see the falls before breakfast, and started at 8.45 



382 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

from the post-office on the box seat of the coach, with a very- 
bad team and a driver who was learning, without a teacher, 
to drive a four-in-hand. 

The road is an excellent one, built at a cost of .£20,000, 
and in the thirty-one miles from Hilo to the Volcano House 
rises about 4500 feet. This being on the windward side of 
the island, there is ample rainfall, and the road runs through 
a natural fernery all the way. Great plantations of sugar- 
cane stretch on either side, for some miles, and the land slopes 
so gradually that while the road continually gains elevation 
the country looks flat. About five miles from Hilo the 
landscape begins to be wooded, and bananas, cacao, bread- 
fruit, wild guavas, the papaia (or papaya) palm, and many 
varieties of tree ferns, including the pulu, which yields a 
short, elastic, yellow fibre, used for stuffing mattresses, pack- 
ing fruit, and so on, may be seen growing by the roadside. 
In the neighbourhood of Olaa, which is at an elevation of 
about 2000 feet above the sea, are large plantations of coffee 
of the Guatemala variety ; but now that it has been dei^iou- 
strated that the "bamboo " species of sugar-cane can be 
grown up to an elevation of 2500 feet, the coffee-trees are to 
be pulled up and cane planted in their place. 

The Halfway House, where we halted for three-quarters 
of an hour to get luncheon and change horses, was reached 
at 12.30, and we got a bad meal, abominably served, and a 
fresh team, more wretched than the one we were leaving in 
exchange. It took four hours to do the remaining sixteen 
miles ; but we should have been pleased if it had taken 
longer and if we had had more time to enjoy the varying 
display of luxuriant vegetation. The trees increased in size 
as we ascended, and some of the tree ferns near the end of 
the journey were fully fifty feet in height. 

A visit to the Sulphur Banks, as the curious but not very 
violent solf atara which covers several acres near the Volcano 
House is called, and a sulphur bath in the hotel filled up the 
time before dinner. The food here was poor and the waiters 
insolent. A complaint made to an official of the hotel com- 
pany, seated at the other end of the same table, elicited the 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 383 

response that "waiters are more difficult to get than guests " ! 
So we took the law into our own hands, and threatened our 
waiter with an immediate thrashing, and as a result we got 
a prompt apology and much better attendance. The hotel 
was just as crowded as the one at Hilo ; but similar strategy 
secured us such bad accommodation as there was, — a tiny 
cupboard of a room with separate beds for each of us. 

Mauna Loa rises 13,675 feet above the sea, almost in the 
centre of Hawaii, and covers over a third of the island. It 
contains all the living volcanoes in the Sandwich Islands, and 
its summit crater, Mokuaweoweo, with walls 400 to 800 feet 
high, has an area of 3.7 square miles and a circumference of 
nearly 10 miles. Mauna Kea, which lies to the north and 
east, is an extinct volcano, and the highest mountain in the 
islands, being 130 feet higher than Mauna Loa, to which it 
is joined by a table-land at an elevation of 7000 feet. There 
is a third cone, Hualalai, which rises to the northwest of 
Mauna Loa, but its summit only reaches 8275 feet above 
the sea. 

Kilauea, the largest active volcano in the world, lies on 
the slope of Mauna Loa, 4000 feet above the sea. It is a 
caldera or pit crater, with an area of something over four 
square miles and a circumference of nearly eight miles. Its 
walls rise precipitously 400 to 500 feet above the surface of 
the solid lava with which the crater is for the greater part 
covered. The Volcano House is situated near the brink, at 
the opposite side of the crater from the active part, called 
the Lake of Halemaumau, and we set out under the stars at 
night to see the lurid reflections of the pent-up fires, and to 
catch a glimpse of the recent eruptions which were dying 
out near the top of Mauna Loa. 

The next morning we were up at five o'clock, and as soon 
as we had some breakfast started to walk to Halemaumau by 
a road made from the hotel down to the crater, and across the 
congealed billows of the shining, tarry pahoehoe^ which, in 
its twists and twirls, its currents and eddies, seems to be yet 
liquid. Patches of scoria, or a-a, are scattered here and 
there, and the stoutest boots suffered cuts and abrasions 



384 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

from the sharp and brittle lava. Although the surface is 
quite hard and comparatively cool, an ordinary visiting card 
dropped through a crack, to announce our call on the god- 
dess Pele, the tutelary deity who was formerly worshipped 
here by the natives, burst into flames within two feet of the 
surface, and we had fair imitations of Turkish baths in a 
couple of small caves in the lava into which we were con- 
ducted. A walk of about three-quarters of an hour brought 
us to the edge of Halemaumau, at the south end of the crater, 
and when gusts of wind carried away the steam and smoke 
we could look down 500 feet below, to the surface of the lake 
of fire, whose crimson waves dashed against the cliffs and 
rose and fell in stormy convulsions. This inferno is 1200 
feet long and 500 feet wide, and the surface measures about 
12 acres. There is a weird fascination in gazing at this 
tremendous natural force, and a feeling of relief when you 
have torn yourself away from it, after having looked for 
tufts of Pele's Hair, as the lava fibres, which may be found 
here in varying lengths up to as long as two feet, are called. 
East of Kilauea, about a mile from the hotel, is Kilauea-iki, 
or Little Kilauea, a caldera a thousand feet deep and a mile 
in circumference, but no longer active and therefore not 
much visited. 

The journey down began well. We had a team of four 
good horses attached to a covered wagonette, and reached 
the Halfway House in an hour and a half, and after an 
hour's halt for refreshments drove leisurely down to Hilo, 
stopping from time to time to pluck the wild fruit growing 
along the road. Of these the most common is the ohia 
(oTiia-ai) or mountain apple, whose streaky green skin 
covers an almost translucent albuminous pulp, which looks 
and tastes like " a round, soft, sweet radish. " It is some- 
thing like the mammee apple, of Hayti, which has a tough, 
thick skin over a bright yellow pulp. Wild guavas, both 
sour and sweet, were in abundance ; and a guava-tree cov- 
ered with its brilliant blossoms of deep pink, shading into 
red and crimson, is one of the sights of the Hawaiian forests. 
Now the blossoms had disappeared, and the waxy-looking red 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 385 

or scarlet fruit had taken its place. The sour variety is 
shaped like a lemon, and has a sharp, astringent taste. It 
is as full of fine seed as a pomegranate, but is not nearly so 
hardy, and its delicate flavour must be enjoyed in the place 
it is grown, for the ripe fruit cannot be kept over four days. 
Another fruit we found particularly delicious was the water- 
lemon. This has a brittle yellow rind covering a heavy 
inner skin very much like cotton- wool; the interior pulp 
is of the consistency and appearance of almost raw white of 
egg, full of seed, and separated into three longitudinal com- 
partments. By some these were called water-apples ; but 
we were told that the water-apple is a distinct variety. 

In Hilo we laid in a supply of fruit for our return voyage, 
and marvelled at the variety and abundance of it on sale. 
The citrus tribe was represented by the citron, lime, lemon, 
mandarin orange, thin and thick skin orange, and the seed- 
less orange, the latter of exceptionally fine flavour. Cocoa- 
nuts, lychees, bananas, and pineapples were to be had, as 
well as berries of almost all varieties, and peaches, plums, 
and similar fruits. The enterprising Chinese shopkeeper 
even pressed us to take some betel-nuts, but we resisted the 
temptation to indulge in this "wely good chow." We 
selected samples of most of the rest of his stock, but invested 
more largely in three kinds of fruit then at their best; 
namely, the zapota (or sapodilla) pear (or plum), the avocato 
or alligator pear, and the mango. The zapota is a species of 
medlar pear, larger and sweeter than the English medlar, 
and with a yellower tinge under the brown rind, but eaten 
in the same way for dessert when it begins to be spotted and 
decayed. The avocato is an egg-shaped fruit, like a small 
melon, about six inches long, with a dark green rind and a 
yellow pulp, like a barely ripe muskmelon, and it makes, 
with a plain French dressing, an excellent salad. For con- 
sumption between meals the mango is most refreshing. Its 
smooth, thick skin covers a yellow, fibrous, juicy pulp, whose 
sharp, acid taste has a strong suspicion of turpentine, as well 
as a smell of it. The large stone in the centre, the rind, and 
the separating pulp cling tenaciously together, and it is so 

2c 



386 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

difficult to avoid getting one's face and hands smeared with 
the juice, that you are convinced of the wisdom of the saying 
that " If you wish to thoroughly enjoy mangoes, eat them 
while in your bath." 

The steamboat Kinau ,was even more uncomfortable and 
overcrowded on the return voyage, and people were glad to 
find room on deck to spread a mattress at night. Built to 
carry fifty passengers, the steamer was surpassing all pre- 
vious records by transporting two hundred. To add to the 
living cargo, the hold was full of grunting pigs when we 
left Hilo, and early the next morning we took on at 
Kawaihae twenty-five head of cattle, hauling them up by 
the head and horns, and tricing them to the bulwarks of the 
fore-deck in a manner that seemed as unnecessary as it cer- 
tainly was cruel. Off Kawaihae we could distinguish the 
three mountains of Hawaii. To the east, standing out in 
the morning sun, was the serrated cone of Mauna Kea; to 
the distant southeast the smooth and gradual slope of Mauna 
Loa appeared scarcely higher than Hualalai, which lay 
almost due south and only half as far away. 

Farther south, along the coast at Kealakekua Bay, is the 
concrete obelisk erected to the memory of Captain Cook, 
who lost his life in a quarrel which broke out between some 
of his sailors and the natives. The inscription on the monu- 
ment reads, " In memory of the great circumnavigator, 
Captain James Cook, R.N., who discovered these islands on 
the 18th of January, a.d. 1778, and fell near this spot on the 
14th of February, A.D. 1779." 

The place where Cook first anchored in 1778 is near 
Waimea, on the island of Kauai, the fourth of the group in 
size and present population, and the first sighted on the 
voyage from Japan. Not far from where he landed is the 
beautiful Waimea Valley, and about twelve miles along the 
coast are the curious "barking sands of Mana." Kauai is 
the most favoured of the group in its streams, and two of its 
well-known waterfalls ' are over three hundred feet high. 
Owing, perhaps, to its being so well watered, it is known as 
the " Garden Isle," and it well repays a visit. Fifteen miles 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 387 

to the southwest of Kauai is Niihau, a small island of not 
quite one hundred square miles, which belongs to and is 
occupied by one firm of sheep-raisers. 

Referring to the disgracefully crowded ship and to the 
cheery way we managed to pass the thirty-four hours to 
Honolulu, one of our fellow-passengers remarked that 
Hawaiian waters would be an ideal place to come to in a 
steam-yacht, and concluded by saying, " Some people seem 
to prefer the condition of the sardine in his narrow box, but 
I prefer to be a gold-fish in a glass globe." At any rate, we 
made the best of it, and enjoyed the brilliant sunshine, the 
cool breezes, the views of the islands and the sea, the extraor- 
dinarily long flights of the flying fishes, which the prosaic 
sailors informed us were very good eating when split and 
grilled, and above all the continual music, always soft 
and plaintive and sung in good time and tune. All day and 
well into the night you could always find somewhere on the 
deck a group singing to the accompaniment of the ukulele^ 
the native guitar ; and long after we left the Hawaiian 
Islands the native melodies floated in our memories and 
brought back pictures of the happy island life. At the 
request of one of the passengers, a prominent native citizen, 
one of the stokers gave us an exhibition of the hula-hula, the 
graceful and sensuous dance peculiar to the Sandwich 
Islands. Although the coal-blackened man who danced on 
the deck was not aesthetic when at rest or heaving coals, he 
was certainly quite as graceful as any of the scantily dressed 
or entirely nude hula-girls whom we were taken to see in 
Honolulu. 

In the four years from the death of King Kalakaua to the 
proclamation of the Hawaiian Republic on the 4th of July, 
1894, there was plenty of excitement in the politics of the 
country ; but since the United States Congress decided on 
annexation, there has been a feeling of satisfaction amongst 
foreign-born residents, and of resignation amongst the 
natives, who are too indolent to protest, and as a rule too 
prosperous to care, much about the form of government so 
long as it is a stable one. 



388 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

On the eve of our departure our friends gave us an even- 
ing's entertainment, beginning with a dinner which was 
noteworthy, not only for its cheery hospitality, but also for 
the exceptionally large mushrooms with which we were 
served, and a most delicious entremets^ in the shape of roast 
bananas. The recipe is simple. Place your bananas, short 
and fat ones for choice, in an oven for fifteen to twenty 
minutes, and serve hot in their jackets. When you have 
eaten these, plain or with a little butter, you will be pre- 
pared to believe that you have hit upon the real ambrosia, 
the food of the gods. Our after-dinner coffee was grown in 
the Kona district of the island of Hawaii, and the flavour 
is equal, if not superior, to the best coffee we could get in 
Java. After dinner we were taken to a show at the 
" Orpheum " and later to a luau — one of the great institu- 
tions of the country. 

In its native simplicity the luau is an open-air picnic, 
where the ground, covered with a few fresh leaves, forms the 
table ; where flowers are the most conspicuous articles of 
attire worn by the dusky beauties ; where fish cooked in ti 
leaves, a sort of sea-weed called limu, and calabashes of poi 
are eaten with the fingers ; and where friends, acquaintances, 
and even strangers are welcome to join the party and partake 
of a generous hospitality. But our luau, given by a native 
lady, partook more of the nature of a cold supper, where the 
guests sat down in a spacious dining-room literally smothered 
in choice flowers, the very chairs being twined with leis and 
the table one mass of them. The fish, the limu, and the poi 
.were on the table, but knives and forks took the place of 
fingers, except for the poi, with which the natives would no 
more use a knife, fork, or spoon than an Englishman would 
to eat asparagus. An excellent string band played native 
airs, and after supper some of the guests danced the hula 
and then the cake-walk, an importation from the music-halls 
of San Francisco; and at 2 a.m. the popular and catching 
song of farewell, " Oloha Oe," rose in full chorus, and we had 
finished our last evening in Honolulu. 

Some of those present left the next afternoon by the 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 



389 



Australia^ and we liad the pleasure of adding our leis to the 
rest and watching the steamer put to sea, its bulwarks lined 
with passengers in bright summer apparel and covered with 
flowers. 

Our ship, the China, left in the evening at ten o'clock, and 
we had a similar send-off in the moonlight. We soon 
rounded Koko Head, which looms up some twelve hundred 
feet above the sea, and then our course lay to the northeast 
for San Francisco. 

We had one more regret in leaving Honolulu, for, as is so 
often the case when a steamer leaves port, we found that 
most of the pretty girls who had thronged the deck up to 
the time of sailing had gone ashore and were left behind. 

From the school children on board we learned the latest 
wrinkles in American slang, and the favourite expression at 
the time was "rubber-neck." This was applied to inquisi- 
tive people who are supposed to be straining their necks in 
their endeavour to look into other people's business. There- 
fore " rubber-neck " means about the same thing as " Paul 
Pry." From it are derived "to rubber," and "rubbering," 
which are somewhat more expressive than " to pry " or " pry- 
ing." We had also on the same high authority that, while a 
shuffle-board might be marked out in many ways so that the 
figures in a line in any direction would total fifteen, the only 
correct way was as follows : — 



4 


9 


2 


3 


5 


7 


8 


1 


6 



We also learned the definition of a " real, true American," 
as being one born or naturalised in the United States, who 
had passed through the public schools of the country. 

We had remarked on this and other voyages with English- 
speaking passengers, how the sociability varied according to 



390 HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 

the proportion of Americans to English. From the reputa- 
tion for reserve which English travellers have acquired, it 
would be argued that the more Americans the merrier the 
party. We found just the reverse on the ships in which we 
travelled. The greater the proportion of Americans, the 
fewer amusements, the most reserve, the least disposition to 
make the best of things, and the dullest voyages. In look- 
ing for a reason for this anomaly, we were compelled to put 
it down to the uxoriousness of the American husbands and 
the constant attention the wives require from them. This 
is no doubt very charming, but it has the effect of separat- 
ing the passengers into family groups, and detracts from the 
general sociability. If you enter into conversation with one 
of a married couple, the chances are that the other will 
shortly join you, never seeming to realise that it is more 
than twice as difficult to entertain two than one. This 
peculiarity appears not to arise from jealousy, but from 
curiosity. The result is that those outside the family group 
give up any attempt to amuse, and confine their attentions 
to their own friends. 

Our voyage to San Francisco was uneventful, and not 
particularly fast for the Qhina^ which in December, 1898, 
made the passage in five days, seven hours, and forty 
minutes. The American Maru held the record for the 
round trip between Honolulu and San Francisco. We left 
the former place at 10 o'clock Tuesday night, and sighted 
the Farallones at 2.15 P.M. the following Monday. At 3.40 
the islands were abeam, and at 4.30 we took the pilot aboard 
near lightship No. 70. About half an hour later we were 
between the Cliff House and North Head, in the entrance to 
the Golden Gate. We were obliged to go first to the quar- 
antine station at Angel Island, and submit to the examina- 
tion of two separate and distinct medical authorities, so it 
was only after dinner that we got to the wharf, and 8.30 in 
the evening when we arrived at the Palace Hotel. The 
panorama of the Golden Gate, whose yellowish waters con- 
nect the Bay of San Francisco with the Pacific Ocean, is 
always a sight to be remembered, and to a wanderer return- 



HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC 391 

ing after twenty years' absence there is a keen sentimental 
interest as well. From Nob Hill and the heights of the 
Western Addition, which rise four hundred feet above the 
sea, the residences of old friends overlook the Golden Gate 
and the incoming steamer, and you feel that a welcome is 
already prepared for you when you land. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

CALIFORNIA 

The Golden Gate. San Francisco. Old Landmarks. The Social Side. 
" A Bottle of Wine." The Yosemite. Glacier Point. The Big 
Trees. The Road Down. California Divorces. Stud Poker. Los 
Angeles. " Bunkoed." " Man Overboard." The Return of the 
Volunteers. 

The Golden Gate is six miles long and only a mile wide 
at its narrowest part, where at some stages of the tide a 
fierce current makes it a dangerous place for small boats. 
Inside the land-locked bay there is room, in its seventy miles 
from north to south, with an average width of about six 
miles, for a variety of currents and winds to test all the 
abilities of the yachtsman. In addition to seamanship, the 
crew of the sail-boat in these waters must have the power, 
in case of necessity, to pull out of the doldrums with the 
"sweeps." On the south shore of the Golden Gate, where 
there was formerly a stretch of barren sand-dunes, San 
Francisco has so spread out that it seems to extend almost 
to the Cliff House and Seal Rocks. To the north, where 
Mount Tamalpais rears its head, and where, in the old 
days, bears have been killed in sight of San Francisco, a 
railway can be seen winding upward; and straight ahead to 
the east, shutting out the view of Oakland, lies in the full 
glare of the setting sun the island of Alcatraz with its old 
fort and military prison, and to the south of it Goat Island 
may be seen. 

After having subscribed to a document in which we 
" solemnly and truly declare " that we are not smugglers, 
our baggage was rapidly passed through the customs-house, 
and we drove up to the Palace Hotel. Twenty years ago 

392 




o 



h d 



CALIFORNIA 393 

this building, which is said to have cost a million pounds 
sterling, was the wonder and pride of the Pacific Coast. 
Then, except the Flood Mansion, the finest dwelling-houses 
were built of wood, the sidewalks and roads were mostly of 
planks, and it was only in the business quarter around the 
Merchants' Exchange, where, in 1877, the last Vigilance 
Committee was formed, that paved roads and fireproof build- 
ings were to be seen. Now Market Street is lined with an 
imposing array of substantial business buildings overtopped 
by the chimney-like " Call " Building, from the top of which 
a most satisfactory bird's-eye view of San Francisco and its 
surroundings can be obtained. The panorama up and down 
Market Street, from the new Union Ferry Depot to the base 
of Twin Peaks in the west, is an extraordinary one, consid- 
ering the population of the city. It is a thoroughfare of 
which London might be proud and New York envious. 

Viewed from above, or from any side, San Francisco is 
interesting and picturesque. Situated on the northeast corner 
of a peninsula, which is washed on the west by the Pacific 
Ocean, on the north by the Golden Gate, and on the east by 
the Bay of San Francisco, and built upon a succession of 
hills and valleys, its physical features are unlike any other 
city. The difficulties of locomotion were overcome by the 
invention of the system of traction by means of endless steel 
wire cables moving underground, and from the modest be- 
ginnings in " the seventies," when " cable cars " ran on Clay 
Street from Kearney Street to Van Ness Avenue, the system 
has spread into a network of lines connecting all parts of the 
city, and running out westward to the Golden Gate Park 
and thence by railway to the Cliff House. The Park, occu- 
pying an area of just over a thousand acres, with its drives, 
promenades, lake, museums, hothouses, and landscape gar- 
dening, has been created upon what was, a little over twenty 
years ago, nothing but a desert stretch of shifting sand- 
dunes. 

Chinatown, with its population of about thirty thousand, 
cooped up in an area of a few acres, is but little changed ; 
the old Mission Dolores, founded in 1776, is still one of the 



394 CALIFORNIA 

sights; and the United States Mint may be visited any fore- 
noon. But some of the old-time public characters have 
disappeared. There was " Emperor Norton 1st," who grew 
long hairs on his nose, carried a curious stick, and paraded 
the streets clad in a uniform of wondrous shape and colour. 
He was an Englishman who had been a successful merchant, 
until overtaken by a financial disaster which destroyed his 
business and affected his mind. Whether he recovered his 
senses or not is a moot point, but he pretended to be the 
legal Emperor of Mexico, and lived on charitable contribu- 
tions, which took the form of purchases at nominal prices of 
bonds and debentures due when he came into his empire. 
" The Great Unknown " was another public character. He 
was a youngish man with long hair, who dressed in the 
height of fashion, and who promenaded the streets with his 
nose in the air, and posed at the corners. He disappeared 
when it was discovered that he was being kept by a French 
laundress. Another well-known individual was the old man 
with a fine head of white hair, who, hatless in all weathers, 
sold newspapers at the corner of Market and Kearney 
streets. He has gone, as well as the xylophone player and 
many others. 

On Post Street are the principal club-houses, where, in 
new quarters, the Bohemian, Pacific Union, and the Olympic 
clubs extend their privileges for the period of a fortnight 
to their friends. Socially, San Francisco has many attrac- 
tions. For kindness and thoughtful hospitalities, for a life 
of unconventional comfort, and for somewhat free and easy 
social intercourse, there is no large city so justly famous. 
There is a continental freedom from Puritanical restrictions, 
and on Sundays some, at least, of the half-dozen theatres 
give evening performances. The equable climate has some- 
thing to do with the mode of life here, although that of San 
Francisco, as compared with that of the rest of California, 
is by no means perfect. The cool sea-breezes, not infre- 
quently accompanied by white fog, which sweep over the 
city in the afternoon, are particularly trying in summer, 
when the sun is hot and the mornings fine, and the transi- 



CALIFORNIA 395 

tiou is sudden and sometimes dangerous. You walk about 
in the morning in thin clothes, and find yourself perspiring 
freely, and when in the afternoon you take a cable car to 
the residential quarter, you are apt to be chilled in spite of 
an overcoat. 

There are several restaurants of the first order in San 
Francisco, and as good a dinner can be got as in New York 
or in London. Similar dishes are if anything somewhat 
cheaper here, but foreign wines are dear. Champagne, 
which is sold here, as is generally the case in America, 
entirely by the brand, without regard to the vintage, is 
15.00 a bottle, but native wines in the most expensive places 
cost from $1.00 to $2.00. If champagne is scarce and 
dear, good native still wines are cheap and plentiful in Cali- 
fornia, and a very palatable table red or white wine can be 
bought as low as a shilling (twenty-five cents) a bottle in 
the cheaper restaurants. 

Throughout the United States the expression " a bottle of 
wine " means a bottle of champagne ; but it is so much of a 
luxury that the bulk of the people seldom or never drink it. 
This is less the case in the eastern states, where there are a 
great number of rich people, but in the western states it is 
not by any means a common beverage. An amusing inci- 
dent occurred at a friend's house where a seamstress em- 
ployed by the day had a fainting fit. There happened to be 
no spirits in the house, and a glass of champagne was admin- 
istered by way of a restorative. The grateful patient was 
very appreciative, and with many marks of approval inquired, 
" What kind of beer is this, anyway ? " and she wondered 
why we laughed. Mr. Frank Norris, in his powerful Cali- 
fornian novel called " McTeague," published in 1899, relates 
that the hero, when he first tasted champagne, at his own 
wedding breakfast, said, "That's the best beer /ever drank." 
It would be curious to know whether the novelist invented 
the incident or had heard of the seamstress. 

One of the oldest established and best known restaurants 
is the Poodle Dog, at the corner of Eddy and Mason streets, 
where, as in the old quarters at the corner of Dupont and 



396 CALIFORNIA 

Bush streets, a specialty is made of frogs' legs cooked in a 
great variety of ways. 

There are several good hotels besides the Palace, which 
advertises rooms from a dollar a day upwards. We saw no 
mention in the tariff that if the barber comes upstairs to 
your room his charge is a dollar and a half, say six shillings, 
for cutting your hair, but such is the fact. Figaro may not 
yet own the hotel, but he ought to be well on the way to it. 

The demi-mondaines here are particularly enterprising in 
leaving cards on people arriving at the hotels. One of those 
we received bore in addition to the name and address the 
legend " Friday to Friday," which we were given to under- 
stand was equivalent to " Open at all hours, day and night." 

We left San Francisco one afternoon for the Yosemite 
Valley, which is about 150 miles due east, taking the half- 
past four o'clock train to Raymond. There are long waits 
at Lathrop, as well as at Berenda, and there would be no 
difficulty in very much shortening the time on the railway. 
However, the stage-coach left Raymond the next morning at 
eight o'clock, and we slept comfortably on the train until 
five o'clock, and had plenty of spare time for breakfast at 
the hotel. We knew that the best time to visit the valley 
was in the spring, when the mountain passes are first opened, 
when the streams are filled with the freshly melted snow, 
and when the roads have still a hard surface and have not 
yet been ground into dust. 

But the Yosemite is magnificently impressive without its 
waterfalls, and one is amply repaid for the discomforts in the 
jolting coach over a rough and unspeakably dusty road. 
There are some points to be observed by way of minimising 
these discomforts. There is less jolting and less dust on 
the box seat, the middle of the centre seat is the next best 
place, and the back seat the worst. The road ascends 
through a monotonous and uninteresting rolling country for 
the first twenty miles to Awahnee, where we stop for lunch. 
From Awahnee the road winds up through groves of pines, 
firs, and cedars, destroyed in places by forest fires. At one 
point on the right of the road is a stump burnt to the shape 




YosEMiTE Valley. The Three Brothers (4000 Feet). 
Photographed by Fiske, Yosemite. 



CALIFORNIA 397 

of a gigantic rabbit, at anotlier place to the left is a boulder 
like a petrified dog, farther on one sees a great natural hang- 
ing-basket suspended from the topmost branches of a tree to 
the right. But the twenty miles to Wawona were only a 
trifle less monotonous and fatiguing than the fi.rst stage, 
altliough we had reached an altitude where the summer's 
heat was modified. The 95° F. we left at Raymond and the 
83° at Awahnee had fallen to 55° before dinner; and fell 
below freezing-point during the night. Although smoth- 
ered in dust when we arrived, and tired with the day's drive, 
we soon freshened up in the mountain air, for Wawona is 
four thousand feet above the sea, and we enjoyed our dinner 
and a short stroll to Stella Lake, a frog-pond near the hotel, 
before turning in. 

Up at five in the morning, when the ground was still 
covered with frost, so as to leave Wawona before seven, 
we cross the South Fork of the Merced, and two miles far- 
ther on there is a fine twin oak-tree on the road. Another 
three miles bring us to Alda Creek, and two hours after 
leaving Wawona, we enjoy, for a moment, the view from 
Lookout Point. Another hour brings us to Summit Rock, 
6160 feet above the sea, and the highest point on the route, 
about twelve and one-half miles from Wawona, and about 
fourteen and one-half miles from the Sentinel Hotel. Five 
minutes after leaving Summit Rock we change horses at 
Chinquapin Flat, and drive on to Inspiration Point, where 
we get the first view of the valley, 1250 feet below. The 
Yosemite runs, in general direction, from southwest to 
northeast, and the floor of the valley, which covers an area 
of about thirteen square miles, lies at an elevation of about 
4000 feet. Through it flows the Merced River (North 
Fork) , fed by the streams which enter the valley on either 
side as waterfalls, ranging from a few hundred up to 3200 
feet in height. On either side rise precipitous cliffs and 
mountains, varying from 2000 to nearly 5000 feet, and in 
the background the summit of Cloud's Rest towers to an 
elevation of nearly 10,000 feet above the sea. 

From Inspiration Point, looking up the valley toward Half 



398 CALIFORNIA 

Dome, the view is cut off, on the left, by El Capitan, whose 
sheer walls, set almost at right angles to each other, rise 3300 
feet above the valley, and have a superficial area of nearly a 
square mile. Nearer to us, but still on the other side of the 
valley, a streak of moisture on the face of the cliff shows 
where the Ribbon Fall takes its leap of 2000 feet before it 
tumbles down another 1200 feet to join the Merced. This 
is sometimes called " The Maiden's Tears," because it is just 
opposite the Bridal Veil Fall, which comes down on the right 
of the picture with the Cathedral rocks towering above it. 

From Artists' Point we had a closer view of the valley, 
which we at length entered near the base of the Bridal Veil 
Fall, whose tumbling mass of spray reflected rainbows from 
time to time, as we drove past it to lunch at the Sentinel 
Hotel, which we reached on schedule time, forty-three and 
one-half hours from San Francisco. 

The afternoon can be profitably spent in driving or riding 
over the road which encircles the floor of the valley. Ex- 
cept for that part over which we had come from Wawona, 
and which is cut up by the heavy coaches, the road is a good, 
level one, through fine woods, and it affords grand views of 
the cliffs which rise on either side. Down here the summer's 
sun finds its way for nine and one-half hours, but the shortest 
winter days only admit the sun to the valley floor for a brief 
two hours. At the back of the hotel is the Yosemite Falls, 
which plunge from the granite cliff 1600 feet, then descend 
by a series of cascades, 500 feet, before the final fall of an- 
other 500 feet. Near this begins a trail of seven and one- 
half miles, up the side of the cliff, to Eagle Peak, 3820 feet 
above the valley. The mountain ponies will carry you up 
in safety to the peak, and from it can be enjoyed the most 
satisfactory bird's-eye view of the whole valley and the sur- 
rounding mountains. As we proceed up the valley, we 
pass under the base of Eagle Peak, which is the highest of 
the Three Brothers, and we see specimens of the noble bird 
from which the mountain gets its name. On the other side 
of the valley are three small peaks called the Three Old 
Maids. Passing the base of El Capitan, and looking up its 




YosEMiTE Valley. The Vernal Palls (350 Feet). 
Photographed by Fiske, Yosemite. 



CALIFORNIA 399 

perpendicular sides, you may see that, as a matter of fact, 
the crest overhangs the base to a perceptible degree. On 
the face of the cliff gigantic cracks form a rough map of 
North America, and in another place a well-defined man's 
face. The road takes us past Ribbon Fall, and near Black 
Springs, on to Cascade Falls, and then back, by Pohono 
Bridge, over the Merced to Bridal Veil Meadow, from where 
we clamber up to a place where the fall strikes the rock after 
its plunge of 900 feet. Cathedral Spires is the appropriate 
name of twin peaks, which rise respectively 2579 and 2678 
feet above the valley. The latter spire rises to a point 700 
feet above the cliff, and the particular cathedral one is re- 
minded of is that of Cologne, with its twin Gothic towers. 
Widow's Tears Fall is pointed out, so-called because it only 
runs for six weeks in the spring. Then we drive along the 
base of the Sentinel, which projects out and up from the 
flank of Sentinel Dome, to a height of 3100 feet, bold and 
massive. 

After dinner we visited an encampment of about twenty 
Piute and Digger Indians, whose chief had died the day be- 
fore, and who were consequently making night hideous with 
the conventional sounds and noises of mourning. 

It was a beautifully clear night, and the Yosemite Falls 
and surrounding cliffs were brilliantly illuminated by the 
moon, while the romantically inclined sought the shadows 
on the other side of the valley, to better watch the moonlight 
effects and enjoy the bracing night air. 

If you have only time to spend one night in the valley, 
you must omit the excursion to the Little Yosemite Valley 
and Cloud's Rest. The former is an excellent camping- 
ground for further excursions, and the latter the finest 
accessible point for a panoramic view of the Sierras, which 
view includes the summits of Mount Hoffman, 11,000 feet ; 
Mount Clark, 11,300 feet ; Mount Dana, 11,227 feet ; and 
Mount Lyell, 11,260 feet. There are also a dozen peaks to 
be scaled by mountaineers, some easy, some requiring nerve 
and experience. 

But if you must leave the day after your arrival, an early 



400 OALIFOENIA 

start will enable you to drive to Mirror Lake, upon which 
the sun rises on summer mornings at about seven o'clock. 
Here, before the afternoon breezes ruffle the surface of this 
wonderful mountain tarn, may be seen extraordinarily clear 
reflections of Mount Watkins, Cloud's Rest, and the Half 
Dome. The latter is, as its name implies, a half dome, 
which rises 5000 feet above the valley, and which terminates 
on one side in a vertical precipice with a face 3000 feet high. 
On the way to Mirror Lake we pass the base of the North 
Dome, upon whose perpendicular side nature has carved the 
Royal Arches, which rise 1800 feet above the valley, and 
have a span of about 2000 feet. Returning from Mirror 
Lake, we take the turn to the left and cross the Ten-ie-ya 
Bridge over the creek of the same name, and at the Tis-sa- 
ack Bridge over the Merced take horses at 8.30 for a four 
and a half hours' ride up the trail to Glacier Point Hotel. 
Ladies wear trousers over their skirts, and ride astride. 
We round the base of Grizzly Peak, and look up a canyon 
to where the Too-loo-la-we-ack takes its plunge of 500 
feet. We ascend the left side of the valley, then cross over 
to the right side, and descend to the top of the Vernal Fall, 
where the Merced River, 80 feet wide in full water, enters 
the valley over a precipice 350 feet high. We cross the 
river above the fall, first pausing to rest our horses and 
to enjoy the views of rapids and cataracts. We follow 
the river up to the Nevada Fall, flanked on the left by 
the rounded summit of the Cap of Liberty, and ascend 
the Zigzags up the precipitous side of the cliff until 
we arrive at the top of Nevada Fall, and can look down 
the 600 feet to its base. Leaving, to the left, the trail 
which leads to the Little Yosemite and Cloud's Rest, we 
cross the river and skirt the base of Mount Starr King to 
the South Canyon, and crossing over the top of the Too-loo- 
la-we-ack Fall, or, as it is also called, lUilouette Fall, follow 
the trail on the flank of Sentinel Dome to Glacier Point. 
From here there is a trail which leads, in the course of a 
mile, to the summit of the dome, which rises 4125 feet above 
the valley, and from which there is a panoramic view of 




YosEMiTE Valley. The Cathedral Spires (2200 Feet). 
Photographed by Fiske, Yosemite. 



CALIFORNIA 401 

the surrounding mountains and tlie greater part of the 
valley. 

But Glacier Point itself affords the most sensational bird's- 
eye view of the valley. Here, on a great splinter of rock 
which projects from the top of the cliff, you can stand and 
look sheer down over 3250 feet to the floor of the valley 
below. There is a deadly fascination about that view, and 
few can raise their eyes from the vista of the valley below to 
take in the surrounding mountain peaks. We came across 
a hornets' nest in the South Canyon, and later a rattle- 
snake, which we were fortunate enough to kill with stones. 
From the Glacier Point Hotel there may be seen a clearly- 
defined dog's head on the base of Half Dome. After lunch- 
eon we took stage-coach for Wawona, crossing over Bridal 
Veil Creek and on to Chinquapin Flat, where we changed 
stages and horses. We proceeded by way of Lookout 
Point and Five Mile Bridge, with a good team and a very 
good driver, reaching Wawona just under four and a half 
hours. Between Chinquapin and Lookout we saw fresh 
tracks of a big bear on the dusty road, and farther on saw 
deer and mountain quail. The woodpeckers were laying 
by a supply of acorns, which they were hammering into 
the tree holes ; but with these exceptions there were no 
signs of animal life to be noticed, as we swung down the 
grade through the forest of pines, firs, cedars, spruce, and 
oak in the crisp mountain air, leaving a cloud of dust 
behind us, and bushels of it distributed over our clothes and 
bodies. 

If you are up in time to leave Wawona at six in the morn- 
ing, you can drive over to see the Mariposa Grove of Giant 
sequoias and catch the regular coach at "4 mile " about 9.30. 
It is about five miles through the forest from the hotel to 
the grove, which comprises 365 big trees averaging 27 feet in 
diameter and 300 feet in height. The other known groves 
of big trees are all situated in the Sierras of California, and 
comprise the Tuolumne Grove of 30 — through one of which, 
the "Dead Giant" (still, after being considerably reduced 
by fire, 31 feet in diameter), the stage-coach is regularly 
2d 



402 CALIFORNIA 

driven — and the Calaveras groves, one of 97 trees, and the 
other, the South Park Grove, containing 1380 trees, ranging 
from 65 to 104 feet in circumference, and 300 to 365 feet in 
height. The largest tree standing is the "New York," in 
the South Park Grove, but the Calaveras Grove contains one 
fallen giant, "The Father of the Forest," whose remains 
indicate a circumference of 110 feet and a height of 435 feet. 
The most celebrated trees in the Mariposa Grove are the 
" Grizzly Giant," with a circumference of 92 feet and a 
height of 285 feet ; " Washington," with a girth only 1 
foot less; "The Telescope," which is a shell of bark stand- 
ing upright, — you can walk into the opening at the base 
and look straight up to the heavens through the hollow 
trunk ; and " Wawona," the tree with the road cut through 
it, whose picture has become so well known through being 
used as an advertisement. 

Our coach drove through " Wawona," and standing under 
the archway of living wood the whole of the coach, the 
wheelers, and half of the leaders' bodies were standing 
within the 27 feet of the tree's diameter. We started to 
count the concentric rings to arrive at the age of the tree, 
but gave it up, and agreed upon a rough estimate of an aver- 
age of 25 rings to an inch, for 12 feet from the centre of the 
tree to the bark, which would give an age of 3600 years. 
Those most familiar with the Big Trees don't place much 
faith in the estimates based on the " annual rings," because 
these growths vary from 3 to an inch to over 120, and are 
so irregular as to leave too large a margin for error. The 
Big Trees are most of them more or less singed by forest 
fires, some of recent years, and some which must have taken 
place in the remote past. There is not much foliage on them, 
and comparatively few branches. They bear small cones 
2 to 2^ inches long, and about 5^ inches in circumference, 
which weigh from |- to 1^ ounces. The bark is fibrous and 
easily flakes off ; and the wood is straight and close grained, 
very much like a good cedar. Owing to the thick forest in 
which the Big Trees grow, it is difficult to get an unimpeded 
view of any one of them, and it is hard to realise that their 




YosEJiiTE Valley. Half Dome (5000 Feet) a>7d Glacier Point (o2U0 Feet). 
Photographed by Fiske, Yosemite. 



CALIFORNIA 403 

heights vary from that of the Clock Tower to that of the Vic- 
toria Tower of the Houses of Parhament, and that one of them 
attains the height of the top of St. Paul's. The Big Trees 
and the Yosemite Valley have been given by Congress to the 
state of California to be preserved for the public benefit. 
Red deer in a wild state may be seen in the Mariposa Grove, 
and bears are sometimes found. 

Starting in the early morning from the Wawona Hotel, 
where the grass was covered with white frost, clad in winter 
clothing and heavy coats, we gradually shed successive layers 
as we descended through the heavy timber which covers the 
mountain sides as far down as the divide before reaching the 
Awahnee Valley. At Miami, which we passed through at 
11 A.M., is a large saw-mill, from which a flume carries the 
cut timber 40 miles down to the low country. Sometimes 
the employees travel down by the flume in an oblong box 
which floats them down at the rate of about 30 nailes an 
hour. As the voyager must lie flat on his back and be very 
careful about raising his head, this mode of progression must 
be rather trying to the nerves. We reached the hotel at 
Awahnee shortly after midday, and after stopping an hour 
for lunch, drove on to Raymond, where we pulled up at 5 
o'clock. We determined to go from Raymond to Los 
Angeles, so after dinner took the 7 o'clock train to Berenda, 
where we arrived at 8 o'clock, and had to wait for the 11.40 
train which took us to Fresno, where we changed into a Pull- 
man at midnight. There was another change at 8.30 the 
next morning, and we arrived at Los Angeles, 275 miles from 
Fresno, at 1.20 p.m., hot, dusty, and tired. 

On the train was an old friend who has been practising 
law in Los Angeles for many years, and we asked him for an 
explanation of the many divorces granted recently to well- 
known people. He was disposed to attribute it not so much 
to laxity of the law as to laxity of morals, and thought the 
genial, invigorating climate, combined with the free-and- 
easy social life, were conducive to a loosening of the marriage 
ties. He mentioned two curious cases that came under his 
own observation. One case was of a man who got a divorce 



404 CALIFORNIA 

from his wife, promptly married again, and soon afterward 
the first wife went to live as a boarder with the newly married 
couple. The other case was of a woman who had succeeded 
in winning her action for divorce from her husband ; but the 
decree remained to be signed until the following day. In Cali- 
fornia, as in most of the other states of the Union, the decree nisi 
is unknown, and as soon as the decree is signed, either party is 
free to marry again. In this case the lady wished to lose no 
time, and promised the lawyer |50 if he would get the 
judge to sign the decree that evening, so that she might be 
married at once, and start on her honeymoon that night. The 
lawyer earned his extra fee, and the lady was made happy. 

We were initiated into the mysteries of Stud Poker while 
waiting for the train at Berenda. Instead of dealing five 
cards and betting after discarding and drawing, only one 
card is dealt face down to each player, and after looking at 
it the player must decide if he will make good, or raise the 
ante, or drop out. Those that remain in are dealt one card 
each face up, and can bet, make good, raise, or drop out ; 
and so with each card dealt face up, until each has received 
four cards dealt face up in addition to the original card 
dealt face down. After betting has finished, the original 
card in each hand is turned up, and the best poker hand 
wins. 

The ancient Pueblo La Reina de Los Angeles had just 
celebrated the centenary of its foundation by the Spaniards 
when I first visited it in 1881, and was then a straggling 
town of 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. It was already 
the centre of a prosperous farming population ; but to 
the traveller its greatest attractions were the old chapel 
of Los Angeles on Main Street, and the Missions of San 
Fernando Rey and San Gabriel Archangel, the latter founded 
as far back as 1771. Some of the old adobe buildings 
were still standing, and there was a strong mixture of 
Spanish in the language as well as in the people of the 
place. To-day it has become a thriving metropolis of over 
100,000 inhabitants, the centre of a great fruit and grape 
country, a famous sanatorium, and a favourite winter re- 



CALIFOENIA 405 

treat for ricli people, many of whom have built themselves 
beautiful houses, surrounded with gardens of semi-tropical 
fruits and flowers. Figueroa Street, Adams Street, and 
St. James' Park in Los Angeles will compare favourably 
with Nice or Mentone in regard to villa residences and pro- 
fusion and variety of flowering plants. Ten miles away, up 
the San Gabriel Valley, at the foot of Mount Lowe, lies 
Pasadena, which is hardly more than a suburb of Los 
Angeles, but which is a serious rival of the latter in hand- 
some residences, fine hotels, and beautiful gardens. In the 
opposite direction, forty minutes by train, are the seaside 
resorts of Santa Monica and Redondo, and 125 miles down 
the coast is the famous Coronado Beach at the entrance to 
San Diego Bay. Twenty years ago the Los Angeles Valley 
was " God's Country " to the gold-miners in the deserts of 
Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico, who saved in order to 
be able to buy a ranch there ; to-day it is " God's Country " 
to half of the continent. 

It was on the train between Los Angeles and Victor, on 
the way to visit some mines in the San Bernardino Moun- 
tains, that we saw a clever lot of card-sharpers "bunko" 
a young Englishman out of $50. The thing was done 
with neatness and despatch, and the method was simple. 
A gentleman comes into the smoking compartment and says 
he has found two others to play whist, " will some gentle- 
man make a fourth ? " B. volunteers ; I follow to look on, 
and sit behind him. The men introduce themselves to each 
other. The one opposite B. says his name is M., the others 
know him by reputation as partner in a well-known firm. 
The one to M.'s left says he is "Lieutenant McC, formerly 
2d Grenadier Guards, now Captain Northwest Police," but 
he pronounces " lieutenant " in the American manner. Oppo- 
site McC. and to B.'s right is " Mr. G., the well-known stove- 
maker." G. produces a pack of cards and proceeds to deal 
one at a time. M. says, " Why one at a time ? " G. says, 
"For whist." M. replies, "I don't play whist. I thought 
you said euchre." B. doesn't play euchre, but is willing to 
be taught, as there is no money on the game. In euchre five 



406 OALIFOENIA 

cards are dealt to each player, first by twos and then threes. 
G. again begins dealing one at a time, and is chaffed by M. 
and McC, who say he must be thinking of poker. G. 
acknowledges he had been playing poker the night before, 
and relates some incidents of the game. The game of 
euchre begins, and M., on picking up a hand, says, "Talking 
of poker, I'll bet $5 I have the best poker hand." B. holds 
two aces and three nines, and accepts the bet. M. raises 
him i20, but B. refuses to go on, as the proposition was a 
straight bet of $5. M. says you can always raise a poker 
bet, but he don't want to take advantage of any misunder- 
standing, so the bet is oif, and money withdrawn. Then 
came the coup. G. shuffled the cards and cut them for B., 
who deals. M. looks at his cards and says, " I don't mind 
betting 15 I have the best poker hand this time." McC. 
takes the bet, and G. raises it to $15. B. finds he holds four 
queens and an ace ; only four kings can beat him, as they 
have agreed to bar straight flushes. But before betting he 
says he has only $50, and wants to know whether he can be 
raised out, or if he is entitled to " see " and win to the ex- 
tent of his bet. This is agreed to, and B. bets |50 in gold 
coin. M. puts his hand in his breast-pocket, produces a roll 
of bills, and raises the bet to $200. McC. and G. drop out. 
B. demands a sight for his $50. I am asked by M. if I 
want to make up the $150. " No money," I reply. " Take 
your cheque," says M. G. asks to see B.'s hand, and then 
offers to give his cheque for $150. M. refuses. G. protests, 
he is " a perfect gentleman," and good for anything he signs. 
M. continues to refuse, on the ground that G. has already 
bet on one hand ; but again offers to take B.'s or my cheque. 
Meanwhile McC. selects a $100 bill from M.'s roll to pay 
the winner, and hands the balance of the bills and all the 
gold to M. B. shows his four queens, and M. lays down 
four kings and takes the bill from McC. G. gathers up the 
cards ; McC. says it is too hot to play any more, and the 
party breaks up. G. asks B. not to say anything about 
playing poker, as the railroad people are against it, and at 
the next station the confederates disappear. B. was quiet for 



CALIFORNIA 407 

a few moments after, and then remarked : " It was worth 
<£10 to see how it was done ; but what beats me is how 
I got four queens, as I dealt the cards myself. M. un- 
doubtedly got the four kings out of his pocket when he put 
his hand in to pull out the bills, and he knew from G. that I 
had the queens, but I didn't think I should be mug enough 
to deal a 'cold deck.'" 

After feeding on boiled beans and pork in the mountain 
mining camps it was a great comfort to get back to the flesh- 
pots of Los Angeles. The end of the summer is the least 
favourable time to see California, when everything is brown 
and parched up with the heat. But in the spring, when the 
rainy season is just over, and everything is fresh and green 
and a delight to the eye, this part of the country is indeed 
beautiful. 

The cry of " man overboard " is one of the most thrilling 
you can hear at sea ; but on a railway train it is both star- 
tling and unprecedented. We were near Martinez, on our 
way back to San Francisco, when the whistle blew, the air- 
brakes were put on, and we came to a sudden stop on a 
trestle over a small stream. Then arose the cry of "man 
overboard," and, sure enough, there in the water by the side 
of the train was a drowning man. He was rescued by the 
train hands with considerable difficulty, and it appeared that 
he was crossing by the trestle, and being old and deaf, failed 
to hear the train until it was too late to do anything but 
jump for his life into the stream. 

San Francisco was in gala array to welcome the Califor- 
nian Volunteers returning from the Philippines ; and while 
there was no such wild enthusiasm as there afterward was 
in London on the return of the C. I. V.'s from South Africa, 
everything was done to give " the boys " a royal welcome 
home, and to make them comfortable and happy. The city 
was tastefully decorated, and Market Street from the ferry 
to the City Hall was beautifully illuminated at night with 
festoons of electric lights. The war with Spain, and the 
annexation of the Hawaiian and Philippine islands, has 
placed San Francisco in a position to gain great advantage 



408 CALIFORNIA 

from its unique situation in respect to trans-Pacific trade. 
And west of the Rockies the people realise the great possi- 
bilities of this trade, and are in favour of colonial expansion. 
A small minority affect to see a danger to their liberties in 
the necessity for a larger standing army which colonial ex- 
pansion entails, and look with disfavour upon it, as they do 
upon that other great agency of American expansion, the 
so-called "trusts." As one eloquent labour leader summed 
up the arguments, " We don't want no standing army to 
force us to work for the trusts at a dollar a dav." 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

ACROSS THE AMERICAN CONTINENT 

Lake Tahoe. The Central Pacific. The Rio Grande Western. Colorado 
Springs. Manitou. The C. B. & Q. Chicago. " The Pennsylvania 
Limited." New York. New York to London. 

Before we started for " the East " over the American con- 
tinent, we arranged to have most of our luggage " checked " 
direct to New York, only taking what was absolutely neces- 
sary with us. But we found that this simple matter re- 
quired a personal application to the head office of the railway 
company, and that it was only as a favour that we were 
given a letter to the baggage-master, directing him to suit 
our convenience in forwarding our luggage in two lots. It 
takes a little over twelve hours to go from San Francisco to 
Truckee by the Central Pacific. The railway runs through 
Sacramento, the capital of the state of California, and climbs 
the Sierras for about 100 miles, until it reaches, in a series 
of snow-sheds and tunnels, an altitude of over 7000 feet at 
Summit. 

Truckee, 209 miles from San Francisco, lies at an eleva- 
tion of 5819 feet above the sea, and there one takes a coach 
to Tahoe City, 14 miles up the Truckee River Valley, on the 
banks of Lake Tahoe. This beautiful sheet of water lies at 
an elevation of 6220 feet above the sea, and has a length of 
about 25 miles, with an average width of about 12 miles. 
The boundary line between the states of California and 
Nevada passes through the centre of the lake, where it is 
fully 2000 feet deep. A 200-ton steamer makes the circuit 
of 72 miles around the lake in 6 hours, and stops at all points 
of interest. 

Most lakes owe their beauty to their setting; but 

409 



410 AOEOSS "THE STATES" 

Lake Tahoe is an exception. "When the mountain peaks 
are covered with snow, Lake Tahoe has a setting of rare 
grandeur, for Mount Washoe stands out to the north ; and 
Donner Peak to the northwest rises to the height of 8730 
feet ; Eubicon Peak to the west to 9284 feet ; to the south 
Pyramid Peak, with 10,052 feet, overlooks several other 
peaks only a few hundred feet lower ; while to the southeast, 
Job's Peak and Freel's Peak are respectively 10,637 and 
10,849 feet high. But in summer, when the mountains are 
bare and brown. Lake Tahoe's beauties lie in the water it- 
self. This must not be taken to refer to the trout of all 
sizes which abound in it, but to the crystal pureness of the 
lake and the wonderful reflection of colours from its surface 
and depths. The shallow waters between Tahoe City and 
McKinney's, 8 miles south, are of a bright yellowish green ; 
as we approach Rubicon Point, 9 miles farther on, the 
colour changes until it assumes a vivid indigo-blue off 
the point, where the water is 1600 feet deep. Near the 
shores of Emerald Bay, which is about 3 miles long by 
half a mile wide, the water is a brilliant emerald-green, and in 
all places so wonderfully clear that you can look into it to 
the depth of over 50 feet and see the pebbly bottom and 
the shoals of trout. Tallac, 29 miles from Tahoe City, 
at the southern end of the lake, is the point of departure 
for Mount Tallac and the group of mountain tarns surround- 
ing its base. The forest of pine, cedar, and tamarack around 
Tallac is the favourite place for campers, and many pleasant 
days can be spent exploring the surrounding country. A 
peculiar fact about Lake Tahoe is that it has no inlet, but 
seems to be fed entirely by springs. It has its outlet in the 
Truckee River, a considerable stream which irrigates a large 
extent of country before it empties into Pyramid Lake, which 
singularly enough has no outlet. 

From Tallac the boat carries you past the curious Cave 
Rock to Glenbrook on the Nevada side of the lake. Here a 
coach starts every afternoon for Carson City, the capital of 
Nevada. The road crosses the divide shortly after leaving 
Glenbrook, and is then mostly down grade, through a desolate 



ACROSS "THE STATES" 411 

mining conntiy decorated with flumes and sluices. It takes 
nearly four hours to do the fourteen miles to Carson City, 
where you dine and take train for Reno on the Central Pacific. 
At Reno we waited, while a dust and wind storm howled 
around the station, until the east-bound express came in an 
hour late. We heard that the west-bound express for some 
reason or other was eight hours late. 

The next morning we were at Elko, Nevada, in the Hum- 
boldt River Valley with the Diamond and East Humboldt 
ranges of mountains to the south. During the day we 
crossed to the north of the Great American Desert, and in 
the afternoon we were skirting the northern shore of the 
Great Salt Lake. Across the lake the Oquirrh Mountain 
looms in the distance south, and to the east the Wahsatch 
Range extends along the horizon as far as the eye can reach 
from north to south. At 5 P.M. we arrived at Ogden, 
833 miles from San Francisco. There we put our watches 
forward an hour from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. 
From Ogden to Salt Lake City is only 55 minutes. They 
say here that the Great Salt Lake, which is about 70 miles 
long by 30 wide, is gradually decreasing in area as well as in 
salineness. 

The train for Grand Junction, Colorado, from Salt Lake 
City over the Rio Grande Western Railway takes about 10 
hours to do the 291 miles; but it starts from an elevation 
of 4225 feet, mounts to 7464 feet at Soldier Summit, and 
descends again to 4594 feet. The express on the Denver 
and Rio Grande narrow-gauge from Grand Junction over the 
Marshall Pass leaves shortly before 10 a.m., and is due on 
the summit, which is 183 miles away and 10,856 above the 
sea, at 7 p.m. The road ascends the Grand Canyon of the 
Gunnison River and through Black Canyon, between whose 
precipitous sides there is barely room for the rapid stream, 
which sometimes overflows its banks and disputes with the 
railway for the possession of the narrow gorge. The road is 
a clever piece of engineering work, and during the whole day 
the scenery is wild and picturesque. The pass is crossed in 
a cutting, covered as a protection against snowdrifts, but 



412 AOKOSS "THE STATES" 

the train stops ou the summit long enough to enable one to 
go out and enjoy the view. Next morning at 4 o'clock we 
arrived at Colorado Springs, 1512 miles from San Francisco, 
and went to the New Alta Vista Hotel, the old Antler's 
having been recently destroyed by fire. 

Colorado Springs, which lies at an elevation of nearly 6000 
feet in the plains at the eastern limits of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, is not only a famous health resort, but is the starting- 
point for excursions to all the wonders of the Pike's Peak 
district. Electric cars take you 3 J miles southwest to the 
entrance of the North Cheyenne Canyon. Carriages take 
you up the canyon to Seven Falls, where you can climb about 
250 steps to the top, and get a good view of the curious cliffs, 
1200 feet high in places, and of the fantastic rock scenery in 
all directions. To the west of Colorado Springs is a pretty 
drive to Bear Creek Canyon, and farther west still lies 
Manitou, also reached by electric cars. 

At Manitou another electric tram connects with the Cog- 
Wheel Route to the top of Pike's Peak. Beginning at the 
mouth of Fugleman's Canyon, the latter railway, which is of 
standard gauge worked on the Abt rack-rail system, with max- 
imum grades of 25 per cent and an average of 16 per cent, 
gains over 7500 feet in the distance of 9 miles to the summit. 
Echo, Shelter, and Minnehaha falls are passed before Halfway 
House is reached, and about two-thirds of the distance up 
Timber Line is arrived at about 2500 below the summit, 
which reaches an elevation of 14,147 feet above sea level. 
The round trip from Manitou is made by "the highest and 
most wonderful railway in the world," in 3| hours, " giving 
ample time to view the grandest scenery on the globe." It 
is certainly the highest railway in the world, for even the 
projected road to the summit of the Jungfrau will reach an 
elevation which is 500 feet lower. The scenery, while it is 
not the grandest, is without doubt the most extended that 
can be conveniently and comfortably seen anywhere. 

The day we made the ascent the thermometer at the 
United States Signal Station on the summit rose to 55° F., 
and it was the hottest and clearest day up to that time in 1899. 



ACROSS "THE STATES" 413 

Not a cloud obscured the sky, but in the east, toward the 
valley of Big Sandy Creek and the plains of Kansas, what 
appeared to be smoke cut off the horizon. Sixty miles to 
the south the Greenliorn Range runs from east to west, and 
seemed quite near at hand, while the Spanish Peaks stood up 
clearly 40 miles beyond, and the E,aton Mountains in New 
Mexico, fully 130 miles away, filled up the background. To 
the southwest, about 60 miles away, the Sangue de Christo 
Range shuts off the view, while about 70 miles almost due 
west, Mount Princeton, the highest peak in Colorado, tow- 
ered a few hundred feet above the other peaks of the Sa- 
guache Range, which contains a dozen or two peaks higher 
than Pike's Peak. To the north are Gray's Peak and Long's 
Peak, the latter over 100 miles away, and both higher than 
Pike's Peak. The officer at the Signal Station says that 
40,000 square miles of country can be seen from here, and 
he rather under- than over-estimates. In the middle dis- 
tance to the south and west can be seen seven lakes, and 
the mining camps of Bull Hill and Cripple Creek, the 
largest building of which can just be distinguished. 
Around toward the north the peak rises more abruptly, 
and the view is over South Peak and the head waters 
of the South Platte River, which flows on to the north 
through Denver. At the foot of the mountain to the east 
the streets and roads of Colorado Springs look like the lines 
on a miniature map coloured in greens and browns. 

There is a good road for those who prefer to come up 
from Manitou on the back of a " burro," but the twenty-two 
miles to be covered is a long day's work. For coming down 
in a hurry the employees of the railroad have a small trolley on 
which they can " toboggan " at the rate of a mile a minute. 

There are two drives that embrace all the main points of 
interest in and around Manitou. One takes in Queen's 
Canyon, Glen Eyrie, and the tract of undulating land scat- 
tered over with curious, fantastic, and grotesque rocks, called 
The Garden of the Gods. The other drive includes some of 
the effervescing springs, the Cave of the Winds in the Will- 
iams's Canyon, the Rainbow Falls, and the Manitou Grand 



414 ACKOSS "THE STATES" 

Caverns in the Ute Pass. The caverns are from seven to 
sixty feet high, and there is a beautiful display of stalactite 
formations. 

From Colorado Springs we went on to Denver, 75 miles 
north, and then east by the " Vestibule Flyer " of the 
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy R.R., which takes about 
33 hours to do the 1046 miles to Chicago. At McCook, in 
the Republican River Valley, near the southwest corner of 
Nebraska, we lost an hour changing from Mountain Time to 
Central Time, and we had a scorching September day run- 
ning over the rolling Nebraska prairies. Indian corn was 
being cut in places and husked in others, and the hot wind 
was blowing as from the mouth of a furnace. In the waiting 
room at Lincoln, the capital of the state, the thermometer 
stood at 102° at 2.15 p.m., and in the fine new granite sta- 
tion at Omaha, on the Missouri River, it still registered 88° 
at 4.30 P.M. We ran through the undulating farming lands 
of Iowa during the evening and night, and crossed the Mis- 
sissippi into Illinois in the early morning, arriving in Chicago 
in time for breakfast. 

Here we found a temperature of 96° at 3 p.m., at the top 
of the Auditorium Building, from where a magnificent bird's- 
eye view can be had of the great blocks of business build- 
ings and the splendid residences of which Chicago is justly 
proud, and also of Lake Michigan, upon whose waters float 
the great fleet of steamers whose aggregate tonnage in a year 
has exceeded that of the port of London. In our wander- 
ings around the city, we remarked the American use of the 
words "to rent," "for rent," "to lease," "for lease," and 
" for let," to signify that a building is to be let. 

As we had seen Niagara Falls at all seasons of the year, 
including mid-winter, when it is a scene of dazzling beauty 
and grandeur, we elected to go on to New York by the 
" Pennsylvania Limited," which leaves Chicago at 5.30 p.m. 
The states of Indiana and Ohio are traversed during the 
night ; and at Pittsburg, the centre of the Pennsylvania coal 
and iron industries, an hour is again lost changing from 
Central Time to Eastern Time, which is exactly five hours 




The Cog-wheel Railway up I'ike's Peak, Colorado. 
Photographed by Hiestand, Manitou. 



ACROSS "THE STATES" 415 

behind Greenwich Time. We ascend the Allegheny and 
Conemaugh river valleys, the latter the scene of the disaster 
of the 31st of May, 1889, when 10,000 lives were lost and 
£8,000,000 worth of property destroyed by the bursting of 
the dam of the South Fork Reservoir. Then we cross the 
northern spurs of the Allegheny Mountains, coming down 
the picturesque valleys of the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers 
to Harrisburg, the capital of the state. Then across country 
to Philadelphia, and northward over the Delaware River into 
New Jersey, and on to Jersey City, completing the 912 miles 
from Chicago in 20 minutes over the 24 hours. 

After an absence of nearly ten years, the impressions re- 
ceived by one returning to New York must be somewhat 
similar to those received by a stranger visiting it for the 
first time. If it is approached by sea from the east, you 
enter its splendid harbour flanked by the green shores of 
Long Island and Staten Island, the Statue of Liberty on the 
one hand, and the great span of the Brooklyn Suspension 
Bridge rising 135 feet above high water mark, on the other ; 
and in the foreground is the old stone fort on Governor's 
Island, perforated like a rat-eaten cheese. If so approached, 
on a clear day, the view of New York Bay (covered by an 
infinite variety of craft, from the sailing-canoe to the " float " 
carrying a loaded railway-train), with its surroundings, is 
a delight to the eye and to the imagination. In front lie 
Battery Park, Castle Garden, and the Bowling Green at the 
toe of the stocking-shaped island of Manhattan, upon which 
New York proper stands. From this point, where, in 1613, 
the first habitations of white men were erected, starts Broad- 
way, the great thoroughfare which bisects New York in the 
direction of its greatest length from south to north. For 
five miles from Bowling Green to Central Park it is succes- 
sively the centre for great office buildings, for wholesale 
merchants, for retail traders, for the theatres, and for large 
apartment houses. Thence, under the name of The Boule- 
vard, it continues for another nine miles, through one of the 
pleasantest residential quarters, to Spuyten-Duyvil Creek. 

To the right of " The Battery " is the mouth of the Hud- 



416 ACKOSS "THE STATES" 

son, locally called the North River, and to the left, the East 
River separates Brooklyn from New York, and leads into 
Long Island Sound. On these waterways, and the Harlem 
River, which connects them, Manhattan Island has a water 
front of over twenty-five miles. 

Approaching New York, as we did this time, from the west, 
by ferry-boat from Jersey City, the eye is struck with the 
marked irregularity presented by the gigantic blocks and 
towers of the new buildings in the business quarters, stand- 
ing side by side with older and more modest erections. 
There are nearer attractions in the crossing of the North 
River, which is here over a mile wide, and deep enough to 
permit the largest ocean liners to make fast alongside its 
piers, but in a few minutes we are landed at the foot of 
West 23d Street, and are driven away to our hotels or 
clubs. Of the latter it should be said that there are over 
three hundred in New York, that they almost without ex- 
ception extend their hospitalities to strangers who are 
properly introduced, and, where there are bedrooms in the 
club-house, the visitor has the right to one equally with a 
member, — with whom, indeed, he shares all other rights, 
except that of voting at a club meeting. 

That part of New York which is essentially Club-land, 
say for a mile on Fifth Avenue in either direction from the 
Union League Club, has changed less in the ten years be- 
tween 1890 and 1900 than the district which has the 840 
acres of Central Park as its centre, or than the "down town" 
business section. Around Central Park has been, and is 
being, built a collection of residential palaces unequalled in 
any city in the world. In architectural exteriors, in sump- 
tuous interiors, and in luxuriousness of living the homes of 
wealthy New Yorkers at the end of the nineteenth century 
show a boundless extravagance which has unpleasant as well 
as agreeable features. 

There may not be so many opportunities for extravagance 
as there are in Europe, but all that exist are taken advantage 
of to the full. Epicures will find in New York a choice 
unequalled elsewhere. Owing to rapidity of communica- 



ACROSS "THE STATES" 417 

tions the markets of New York draw their supplies of fresh 
fish from points as far apart as the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Banks of Newfoundland, their fruit and vegetables from the 
whole continent as well as the West Indies, and their game 
from the north of Canada to the tropics and even from Great 
Britain. There are few dishes known to Europeans that 
cannot be had in New York, and the great hotels and res- 
taurants can furnish novelties to most visitors, and cooking 
that may be equalled elsewhere in the world, but certainly 
not surpassed. 

The district in the neighbourhood of Riverside Park 
which overlooks the Hudson River has been wonderfully 
improved in recent years, and is rapidly being covered with 
fine buildings. 

But the great office buildings down town, rising three 
hundred feet or more above the pavements and containing 
upward of twenty-five storeys, are perhaps the most charac- 
teristic feature of New York, and strangers are impressed 
with their enormous size, with the rapidity of their construc- 
tion, and with the details of management, including the speed 
of the " elevators," the arrangements for the disposal of rub- 
bish, and for collection of letters to be posted. 

From the classical old Sub-treasury Building, with its 
colossal bronze statue of Washington placed on the site 
where he was inaugurated as first President, which stands 
where the City Hall once stood, to the new City Hall, and 
within a half-mile radius of each, are scattered these great 
buildings. The views of the city and the far-away country, 
the scenes on the rivers and in the harbour, and the peeps 
into the streets beneath to be had from the upper storeys, are 
fascinating in their variety and interest. It is curious to 
look down on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge, over a 
mile long and eighty-five feet wide, and note the spider's 
web of cables that sustain it and keep it in position while a 
big four-masted vessel sails, or is towed, under its span. 

As four o'clock approaches, there is a gathering of steam- 
yachts near the Battery, in readiness to dash off with their 
owners and guests to country homes or clubs on the shores 

2e 



418 ACROSS "THE STATES" 

of the bay, the sound, or the Hudson River, as soon as the 
day's work is over. These are not always or entirely pleas- 
ure boats. Frequently the city magnate simply transfers his 
business from his of&ce to his yacht, and surrounded by clerks, 
stenographers, and type- writers, continues to work while he 
steams up the Hudson, through the shipping and past the 
Palisades, to his home at Tarrytown or Irvington, or perhaps 
to the Ardsley Club near Dobbs Ferry, in time for dinner. 
I spent a very pleasant week-end at the Ardsley Club, which 
has a number of bedrooms for members and their guests ; and 
from there steamed up one afternoon to the beautiful and 
romantic Highlands of the Hudson, and then to the U.S. 
Military Academy at West Point, to see the cadets go through 
the " sunset drill " and lower for the night the flag that floats 
during the day over scenery of exceptional beauty and charm. 
And under the moonlight, as we steamed homeward, we found 
only an increase in our appreciation of the scenes on the 
Hudson River. 

There was nothing very novel in our voyage from New 
York to Liverpool, beyond the fact that we crossed in the 
then new White Star R.M.S. Oceanic on her first return 
voyage. This enormous steamer, 24 feet longer than the 
famous Grreat Eastern but of smaller beam, has accommo- 
dation for about 1750 passengers and a crew of about 375 
men. We cast off from the New York pier a few minutes 
after 4 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon and, drawing 28 feet 
of water, slowly steamed down the bay. We passed the 
Shamrock which had just arrived with the Erin to com- 
pete for the " America " Cup, and we lined the ship's side 
to give them a parting cheer. We dropped our pilot inside 
of the Sandy Hook Lightship, and shaped our course for 
Queenstown. We had the usual fogs off the Banks, saw the 
usual whales and porpoises, and sighted the usual number 
of vessels. We found the Oceanic an easy mover, graceful 
and slow in her pitching and rolling, but disposed to exagger- 
ate her roll to leeward, owing perhaps to the large surface 
above the water exposed to the force of the wind. At any 
rate, on Tuesday, when the official log read "moderate 



ACROSS "THE STATES" 419 

westerly gale, heavy northwesterly sea, fine," we measured 
leeward rolls of 23°. We were comfortably provided for in 
the way of cabins, meals, and attendance, but we noticed that 
the great size of the ship kept people apart, discouraged the 
forming of acquaintanceships, and even made it difficult to 
find friends. The smoking-room, larger than that of most 
hotels, is divided into about 20 compartments each capable 
of seating half a dozen people, and as ours was a party of 6, 
we practically kept to ourselves the whole voyage. Others 
did the same, and as a consequence, there were no auction 
pools on the ship's run, nor any other form of public diver- 
sion inaugurated. Our full days' runs varied from 443 to 
456 knots, and we logged 2806 knots from Sandy Hook 
Light to Queenstown, to which add 22 knots at the New 
York end, and 235 more to Liverpool, making in all 3063 
knots. The Oceanic cast anchor in the Mersey about 2.30 
Wednesday afternoon, September 20, 1899, about an hour 
and a half under the 7 days ; but we had completed the full 
week by the time we left the Prince's Landing Stage on our 
way to the train for London. 



CHAPTER XXXV 



SUGGESTIONS TO TOUEISTS 



When to start. Around the World in Nine Months. What it costs. 
Luggage. Clothing. Cigars and Tobacco. Sundries. For Japan. 

Japan and India are the two countries of the East most 
interesting to globe-trotters, and if both countries are to be 
visited, one should leave London not later than the middle of 
October, and devote a year to the tour. 

The arrangement of such a tour has as a pivot the arrival 
in Japan during the first week in April ; and in case Java 
is left out, a later start can be made, or more time given to 
other places, and after finishing Japan, which is generally 
done in much less time than fourteen weeks, the tour may be 
further abbreviated. The following time table shows how 
the nine months from the middle of January to the middle 
of October may be allocated, presuming one to arrive on 
the former date at Colombo, from India or direct from 
London : — 



Colombo 
Batavia 
via Singapore 
Hong Kong 
Shanghai 
Yokohama 
Honolulu 
San Francisco 



arrive January 15 

arrive February 14 
arrive March 15 
arrive March 25 
arrive April 1 
arrive July 26 
arrive August 21 



leave February 5. 

leave March 7. 
leave March 22. 
leave March 26. 
leave July 15. 
leave August 15. 
leave September < 



A week gives sufficient time to see Hong Kong and take a 
flying trip to Canton and Macao. A day suffices for Singa- 
pore or for Shanghai. The Yosemite Valley, the Big Trees, 
and other notable places in California can be visited during 
the eighteen days between arriving in and departing from 

420 



SUGGESTIONS TO TOURISTS 421 

San Francisco. If a month is then spent in the States, you 
will have plenty of time to visit Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City, 
Pike's Peak, Denver, Chicago, Niagara Falls, and New York, 
before leaving for London in time to arrive about the 15th 
of October. 

My own time table was as under : — 

Left London, January 12; left Marseilles, January 19; 
Colombo, arrived February 5, left 19th; Singapore, arrived 
and left February 26 ; Batavia, arrived February 28, left 
March 7; Singapore, arrived March 9, left 15th; Hong 
Kong, arrived March 22, left 30th; Shanghai, arrived April 
2, left 3d; Nagasaki, arrived April 5, left 6th; Yokohama, 
arrived April 8, left July 12; Honolulu, arrived July 23, 
left August 8 ; San Francisco, arrived August 14, left Sep- 
tember 1. Left New York for London September 20, 1899. 

For the benefit of intending tourists, I add the following 
estimate of the cost of a tour around the world by way of 
Japan ; and a list of clothes and other articles required dur- 
ing a journey in so many latitudes and altitudes. 

A bachelor travelling first-class, and having the best of 
everything, will spend on an average, over a period of eight 
to twelve months, about two guineas (say 110 U.S.A.) a 
day. This will not include cigars or wines, or the purchase 
of outfit or curios; but it includes steamer tickets and all 
other travelling expenses. Two, occupying the same rooms 
at hotels and inns, could do it for three guineas a day. It 
is better to forego the reduced rates for a round-the-world 
ticket, and not be tied to a certain route ; but to suit your 
own convenience in the matter of steamers and take the first 
good one out of any port you wish to leave. 

Since there is practically no limit to luggage on the steam- 
ships to the East, I preferred to run the risk of taking too 
much in the matter of quantity and variety of clothing, rather 
than too little. On arriving at a port I could always reduce 
the luggage for up-country travel, leaving the remainder 
until my return, and finally shipping the surplus back to 
London from Yokohama, so as to bring the contents of my 
trunks well under the 350 lbs. allowed free by the trans-conti- 



422 SUGaESTIONS TO TOURISTS 

nental railways in the United States to travellers from across 
the Pacific. 

Linen must be taken to last nearly a month, as no washing 
is done on the English steamers, although some of the foreign 
steamers manage this, and there is no good reason why any 
passenger steamer making long voyages should not make 
this provision for the comfort and convenience of their 
clients. 

I had heard of travellers making long journeys with hardly 
any preparation except a letter of credit ; and it is true that 
most necessities, comforts, and conveniences can be purchased 
as one goes along ; but I wanted to employ my time in foreign 
parts otherwise than in this sort of shopping — and my list 
was a long one. It is true that I over-supplied myself in 
some cases, and underestimated my requirements in others ; 
but if I went over the same ground again, I would rather re- 
vise my list by making additions than by making omissions. 

My plan, when making long voyages, is to have a small 
book, containing, under appropriate headings, a list of every- 
thing carried, down to the last cake of soap. Opposite each 
article is placed a mark indicating in which package it is to 
be found. In addition to its conveniences in other ways, it 
has its uses in preventing carelessness or stealing by servants 
and guides, to whom you show the book. Require them to 
check the inventory when they come, and verify it when 
they go. 

Clothes and other articles should be packed in small port- 
manteaus, or trunks, — nothing larger than a steamer trunk 
thirteen inches in depth being taken. An air-tight, tin uni- 
form case, or trunk, is necessary for the tropics and for Japan, 
to preserve gloves, patent-leather articles, cigars, and other 
things that would be injured by moisture or cockroaches. 
A waterproof canvas bag, with lock, for soiled linen, and a 
hold-all of the same material (with straps) for rugs and 
overcoats, and long enough when travelling in Japan to 
contain bedding. A compressed-cane shirt-box to contain 
at least two dozen shirts. If letters of introduction are 
taken to governors or ambassadors, it will be necessary to 



SUGGESTIONS TO TOURISTS 423 

take frock-coat and silk hat, and the latter requires a leather 
hat-box. A waterproof toilet-case, and sponge-bags to hang 
up in your cabin. A deck-chair, which should be given away 
in Yokohama or San Francisco, as it is not worth the expense 
of taking across the American continent. The Pacific Mail 
steamers provide, without charge, comfortable deck-chairs, 
while a small fee procures them on the White Star Line 
crossing the Atlantic. A sun-umbrella of drab cotton, or 
tussore silk, lined with green. A pith helmet can be bought 
at Port Said or Colombo, but a straw hat, a light " Homburg" 
hat or " slouch," and a couple of caps should be taken. For 
footwear, a pair of white canvas, or leather, shoes, with rubber 
soles for use on shipboard ; a similar pair with leather soles 
for the tropics ; a pair of patent-leather boots, and a pair of 
pumps for evening wear ; heavy brown lace boots for walk- 
ing ; brown lace shoes for everyday use in Japan, and a pair 
of slippers are necessary. A rug, mackintosh coat, and an 
unlined ulster reaching to the ankles, and made so that it 
can be buttoned close to the neck, will be required. The 
latter can be used in cold weather on board ship on the way 
to the bathroom, and in Japan there will be occasions to use 
it as bath gown, dressing gown, or night dress from time to 
time. 

Havana cigars can be bought in boxes of twenty-five, each 
cigar wrapped in paper and tin foil. The boxes should be 
sealed up separately in brown paper, and enough may be 
taken to last until San Francisco is reached, as there is no 
difficulty with the customs at the ports on the way. In case 
the Japanese officials make any difficulty, those you do not 
require in the country can be left at the custom-house until 
you leave. Good Manila cigars can be bought at Singapore, 
Hong Kong, and Yokohama Tobacco may be taken from 
England or bought at Gibraltar, where English smoking mix- 
tures are much cheaper, as there is only a nominal duty on 
tobacco. 

With other literature take the guide-books of the countries 
you are about to visit, in order to read them up on the voyage. 
A flat blotting-pad, about 12 x 18 inches, fitted with clips at 



424 SUGGESTIONS TO TOURISTS 

the sides to hold the paper, will be more useful than more 
expensive and complicated writing portfolios. Envelopes, 
stamps, and labels with gummed backs must be carefully 
kept in a dry place, or they will be found stuck together. 
Visiting cards should be taken. I also took a pair of good 
field-glasses with aluminium mountings ; a pair of blue spec- 
tacles or goggles ; a bath thermometer ; a pocket magnifying 
glass, and a kodak camera for instantaneous photography, 
which can be used without focussing or other adjustment. 
Owing to the great moisture of the Japanese atmosphere, 
kodaks must be slowed down there, and time exposures are 
more successful. Another camera may be taken for photo- 
graphing buildings and landscapes ; but many an interesting 
scene or group will be lost, if time is wasted in getting the 
camera ready. A supply of films carefully packed in her- 
metically sealed tin cases must be taken to last until San 
Francisco is reached. Plates can be bought at most ports. 

My list included the following items : — 

Two flasks, one for brandy and one for whiskey. Pocket 
footrule, compass, and fruit-knife. Shaving-tackle and soap. 
Oblong mirror with wire back rest for standing up or hang- 
ing. Pneumatic candle-holder, that can be attached to the 
surface of the mirror or other smooth surface, and short 
candles to fit. Leather belt, with pouches that may be 
slipped off. Dress trousers, waistcoat, coat and jacket. 
Also a feather-weight dress-jacket made of alpaca, cashmere, 
or tussore silk, unlined. Kamarbands, red, blue, or black. 
White and black dress ties. A navy-blue yachting suit. 
A light-weight tweed suit. Two white flannel suits. White 
duck waistcoats. At Colombo may be bought white trou- 
sers, morning- jackets, and dress- jackets, as well as khaki 
trousers and jackets. Shirts : two dozen linen, four thin 
fancy flannel, two thick flannel, all without collars and cuffs, 
and two light flannel ones with collars. Two dozen col- 
lars and a dozen pairs of reversible cuffs. Six thin woollen 
cholera-belts. Three dozen handkerchiefs. Four suits 
flannel pyjamas. Three dozen pairs socks, and undercloth- 
ing in proportion. About five hundred wax-matches and 



SUGGESTIONS TO TOURISTS 425 

fusees packed in a tin box with tlie contents marked on the 
outside of the package may be taken on board and left 
with the purser, but it is important to so mark the package 
to avoid being subject to a fine under the Merchants Shipping 
Act. 

The following were mainly intended for Japan. A wire 
pillow, two cotton pillow-cases, two pairs cotton sheets, and 
a dozen towels. An aluminium canteen. The British In- 
fantry Officer's canteen for one consists of a cooking-pot 
containing saucepan and lid, two canisters, tea-pot and lid, 
cup, plate, saucer, frying-pan, tea-strainer, knife, fork, des- 
sert and tea spoons, pepper, salt, and mustard boxes, and 
weighs two pounds two ounces. These may be covered with 
a canvas case with strap. An aluminium water-bottle cov- 
ered with felt and fitted with shoulder-straps. A travelling 
filter fitted so as to filter boiled water from the pot into the 
water-bottle. Metal " sparklets " bottle for aeration of any 
liquid with carbonic-acid gas, and six dozen capsules for each 
member of the party. 

A lunch-basket may be bought in Japan, and tin-opener 
and corkscrews to go with it. A tin medicine-chest contain- 
ing quinine, opium, salicylate of soda, tannic acid, glycerine, 
tube of vaseline, mustard leaves and court-plaister. A tin 
of carbolic deodorising powder, and a couple of tins of insect 
powder. Toilet paper. 

A pair of cloth overshoes may be bought in Japan to put 
over walking-boots when entering houses or temples, although 
at some temples these may not be used. Also yanagi-gori, 
or basket trunks formed of two oblong baskets, fitting closely 
the one over the other, with ropes to fasten them and oil 
paper to cover them. These are particularly useful for the 
commissariat, as they can be reduced in size as the food is 
consumed, and if bought in nests can be placed one inside 
the other as they are emptied. 



INDEX 



Geographical names in small capitals. 

Names of persons, monuments, scenes and subjects in Roman characters. 

Foreign words, other than above, in italics. 



Aburana, 149. 

Adams, Will, 276. 

Aden, 9-10. 

Agriculture, 181, 193, 236-7, 362-4. 

Aikuchi, 220. 

A'mos, 254. 

Aizu Clan, 257. 

Alcock, Sir Rutherford, quoted, 216, 

284, 355. 
Amado, 188. 

Ama-no-Hashidate, 227, 359, 360. 
Ama-terasu, 146. 
Amma, 178. 

Ancestor-worship, 121-2, 159. 
Andon, 187. 

Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 222-3, 334. 
Anuradhapura, 26-30. 
AoMORi, 254-5. 
Architecture, 186. 
Arita, 217-19. 
Army, American, 106-7, 408. 

" Chinese, 124. 

" Japanese, 124, 200-2, 327. 
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 365. 
Art, Japanese, 335-45. 

ASAKDMA-TAMA, ISE, 235-6. 

Asakusa Kwannon, Tokyo, 282. 

ASAMA-TAMA, 272. 

AsHio, 26-5-6. 
Atami, 247-8. 
Awata-ware, 230. 

B 

Bagendit, Lake, 55. 
Bandai-san, 258-9. 
Bandarawella, 32-3. 
Bank-notes, 135, 137, 346. 



Basha, 204. 

Batavia, 41-3. 

Bathing, 10, 44, 176-7, 187, 196-7, 

202-4, 259, 266, 271, 277, 32-3-4, 

370. 
Beggars, 229-30. 
Bells, 157. 

Belot, Adolphe, 366. 
Bento, 149. 
Beppu, 202-3. 
Betto, 205, 240. 
Bicycling, 10, 24, 2.39, 370. 
Big Trees, 401-2. 
Birds, 216, 259. 
Birodo-yuzen, 164. 
Biwa or loquat, 300. 
BiwA, Lake, 229-30. 
Bizensodo, 290. 
Bonze., 159. 
Bo-tree, 19, 26, 175. 
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, M.P., quoted, 

318. 
Bubonic Plague, 84. 
Buddhism, 26, 120, 154, 159-62, 168, 

339. 
Buitenzorg, 45. 
Butszidan, 185. 
Butterflies, 277. 
Buyu, 365. 

C 

California, 390-408. 
Camoens, 104. 
Camphor, 129, 248. 
Canton, 86-100. 

" River, 88. 
Card-sharpers, 405-7. 
Carving, 162, 280, 343. 



427 



428 



INDEX 



Cats, 171. 

Ceylon, 12-40. 

Chamberlain, Prof. B. H., quoted, 317, 

343. 
Cha-no-yu, 150-2. 
Charm of the East, 70-71. 
Cherry-blossom Dance, 150-1. 
Cherry-blossoms, 129, 141-2, 171-2. 
Chicago, 414. 
Children, Japanese, 301. 
Chinese, abroad, 52-3, 61^, 81, 138, 
308, 393. 

" Army, 124. 

" Characteristics, 113-17. 

" Commerce, 111-12. 

" Debt, 111. 

" Indemnity to Japan, 111. 

" " Powers, 111. 

" Navy, 107-8. 

" on board ship, 72-3. 

" Sailors, 105, 114. 

" Soldiers, 113, 124. 
CM, 311. 

Cho Densu, 262, 340. 
Chodzuba or Chozuba, 186. 
Cholera-belts, 79. 
Chon Kina, 241. 
Ghushin-guru, 290. 
Chuzenji, 265-6. 

" Lake, 265. 

Cleanliness, 322-4, 327-8. 
Climate of Japan, 361-2. 

" San Prancisco, 394. 

Cloisonne, 164, 238, 343. 
Coal, 221-2. 
Coaling Ships, 68, 128. 
Coffee, 32, 44, 56, 388. 
Coins, Chinese, 92-3. 

" Japanese, 135-7. 
Colorado Springs, 412-13. 
Commerce of China, 110-12. 
" Japan, 348-50. 

CONEMAUGH VaLLEY, 415. 

Conway, Sir W. Martin, quoted, 342. 

Cook, Capt., E.N., 386. 

Copper, 265. 

Costumes and Clothing, 15-16, 43, 49- 

50, 70, 144, 184-5, 189, 258, 324-5, 

370, 377, 400, 421-3. 
Curzon of Kedleston, Lord, 367. 



D 

JDagabas, 19, 27, 29-30. 

Daiba, 248. 

Daibutsu, 168, 182, 274-6. 

Daimyo, 302. 

Daishi-do, 158. 

Daiya-gawa, 261, 265. 

Daken-ginken or Gin-ko-shihei, 135, 

346. 
Dambulla or Dambool, 25-30. 
Dancing, 150-1, 190, 232-5, 240-1, 

296-7, 388. 
Danjuro, 294, 
Dazaifu, 219. 
Debt of China, 111. 

" Japan, 347-8, 351-2. 
Dewey, Admiral, 107. 
Dhobies, 12, 66. 
Distances by Sea, 11, 39, 72, 107, 126, 

130-1, 183, 250-1, 381, 390, 419. 
Divorces, 316, 403-4. 
dogashima, 245. 
D5go, 195-198. 
Dominoes, Chinese, 74-5. 
Doshisha, Kyoto, 152. 
Durian, 37, 46-7, 65. 

E 

Earthquakes, 276. 
Education, 303, 377. 
Eko-in, Tokyo, 288. 
Embroidery, 162. 
Emperor of China, 125. 

" Japan, 144-7. 

Emperor's Garden Party, 143-8. 
Empress-Dowager of China, 125. 
Empress of Japan, 145-6. 
Engawa, 186. 
"English as she is Japped," 132-3, 

224-5. 
Enoshima, 275. 
E-ori-komi, 221. 
Examinations in China, 92. 
Execution ground, Canton, 91-2. 
Expenses, travelling, 421. 



Paience, 213, 216, 230. 

Pans, 164, 288. 
Fan-tan, 76, 101-3. 



INDEX 



429 



Feng-shui or Fung-shid, 95. 

Fever, 28. 

Fireworks, 279. 

Fish, 05, 112, 278, 301. 

Fishing, 2-48. 

Fishmarket, Tokyo, 282. 

Flower-boats, Cautoii, 98-9. 

Flowers, 19, 56, 149, 179, 181, 253, 

275-0, 283, 372. 
Food, 13, 19, 31, 34, 51, 65, 73, 99, 113, 

148, 173-4, 177, 179, 211, 224-5, 

295-6, 299-300, 372-4, 388, 395. 
Foreigners iu China, 112. 

'• Japan, 138, 305-6. 

Fortune, Robert, 285. 
Forty-seven Ronin, 283, 290, 294-5. 
Fraser, Mrs. Hugh, quoted, 317. 
Fruit, 17, 19, 37, 46, 65, 83-4, 113, 255, 

300, 382, 385. 
Fridii, 220. 

Fuji-SAN or Fuji-YAMA, 243-4, 245. 
Fdkutama, 194. 
funakata, 277. 
Funerals, 180-1. 
Fusxima, 152, 186. 
FuTAMi, 236. 
Futon, 187. 

G 

Galle, 20. 

Gambling, 76-8, 101, 116, 405-8. 

Games and pastimes, 3, 5-7, 74-7, 99, 

101-3, 240-1, 389, 404. 
Gardens, 167, 224, 283-7. 

Botanical, 21, 37, 45-6, 68, 

285-6. 
Gardner, Robert S., quoted, 360. 
Garoet, 54-6. 

Geisha, 150-1, 240-1, 295-7, 312. 
Genge-hana, 149. 
Geta, 184-5. 
Gibraltar, 4. 
Ginseng or genseng, 97. 
Go, game of, 240. 
Godo, 267. 

Golden Gate, The, 392. 
" " Park, .393. 

Gosho Palace, Ky5to, 151. 
Gotemba, 149, 244. 
Guide-books, 45, 134-5, 423. 



H 

Ilakama, 235, 326. 

Hakgalla Gardens, Ceylon, 37. 

Hak-kei, 229-30, 276. 

Hakodate, 253-4. 

Hakone, 246-7. 

Haleakala, 380. 

Halemaujiau, 383-4. 

Half-castes, 52. 

Hanabusa Itcho, 340. 

Hana-ike, 185, 287. 

lianami, 283. 

Hana-michi, 150, 291. 

Hankow or Hankau, 112. 

Haruna Lake, 270. 

" Temple, 271. 
Hasedera or Temple of Hase, 170. 
Hashi, 149. 
Hattori, 238. 

Hawaii, Island of, 375, 378-84. 
Hawaiian Islands, 368-91. 
" Language, 372. 

" Sailors, 381. 

Hearn, Lafcadio, quoted, 153, 318, 

332, 336, 355, 365. 
Heimin, 302. 
Hibachi, 186. 
HidariJingoro, 152, 179, 239, 242, 243, 

263. 
Hijikawa or Hishigawa Moronobu, 

340. 
Hiketa, 192. 
HiLO, 382. 
HiMEJi, 225. 
Himo-gatana, 220. 
Hiroshima, 195. 
HiTOYOSHI, 215. 
HlYORI-YAMA, 236, 359. 
HizEN, 217. 
HODOGAYA, 149, 359. 
Hokkaido or Yezo, 253-6. 
Hokusai, Kodoshika, 341. 
Holidays in Japan, 279. 
Honami Koetsu, 340. 
Hondo, 156. 

HoNG-KoNG, 79-84, 104. 
Hongwanji Temples, 158, 180, 239, 

282. 
HONOLULTT, 369-74. 
Horses, 199, 205, 253, 363. 



430 



INDEX 



HoRYUJi, 168-9, 339. 
Hotoke, 160. 
Holotogisu, 259. 
House-boats, 110. 
hoalalai, 383. 
Hudson River, 415-16. 
Hula-hula, 387. 
Hyogo, 130-1, 182-3. 



lemitsu, 264. 
leyasu, 242, 261-4. 
Uiai, 185. 
Ikao, 270-1. 
Ike-hana, 287. 
Ikuno, 225. 
Imari-ware, 217. 
Inawashiro, 257-8. 

" Lake, 259. 

Indemnities, Chinese, 111. 
Inland Sea, 130, 193-4, 199, 200, 225, 

359-60. 
Inns in Japan, 183-8. 
Inori, 160. 
Inro, 327. 
Ise Oiido, 232-4. 

" Temples, 231-5. 
Itcho, Hanabusa, 340. 
Iwasa Matahei or Matabei, 239, 340. 



Japan, 127-367. 

Japanese Army, 124, 200-2, 326. 

Art, 338-45. 

Balance sheet, 351. 

Budget, 352-3. 

Characteristics, 299-309, 
321-45. 

Civil Code, 309. 

Commerce, 348-52. 

Constitution, 302-3. 

Debt, 347-8, 353-4. 

Finances, 347-9. 

House Tax, 305. 

Language, 134-5, 333-4. 

Literature, 345. 

Merchants, 305-9. 

Navy, 251-2, 353-4. 

Parliament, 304, 337-8. 

Press, 304. 



Japanese Sailors, 105, 252, 326. 

" Scenery, 355-66. 

" Soldiers, 124, 200-2, 326. 

" Taxes, 352-3. 

" Treaty with Great Britain, 
123, 223, 334. 

" Women, 197-8, 204, 277, 
314-19. 
Java, 41-59. 

Jimmu Tenno, 146, 169, 208. 
Jiz5, 156, 160, 169, 246. 

JOHOR, 67. 

Joro or Joro, 151, 310-14. 
Josetsu, 340. 
Joshi, 313, 319. 
Jiljutsu, 209. 
Ju-ni-kai, T5ky5, 281. 
Junsai-mura, 2.53. 
Justice, 69, 319-20. 

K 

Kago, 247. 

IVAGOSHIMA, 211. 

Kagura, 234. 

Kahoolawe, Island of, 380. 

Kakemono, 185. 

Kamakura, 274-6. 

Kami-IDE, 243. 

Kanii-no-michi, 158. 

Kan, 250. 

Kanazawa, 276. 

Kandan, 205. 

Kandt, 22. 

KannusM, 159. 

Kano Masanobu, 340. 

" Motonobu, 243, 340. 

" School, 152, 243, 339-41. 

" Tanyu, 157, 262, 281, 340-1. 

" Yasunobu, 263. 
Kano-zan or Kano-zan, 276-7. 
Kappa, 176. 
Karuizavi^a, 271-2. 
Karuwa, Tokushima, 190. 
Kashira, 219. 
Kntana, 219-20. 
Katana-kake, 220. 
Katsura-gawa Rapids, 165. 
Kauai, Island of, 369, 375, 386. 
Kawakami, 293. 
Kawa-rake, 235. 



INDEX 



431 



KiLAUEA, 383-4. 
Kimii-dera, Wakayama, 177. 
Kimono, 325, 330. 
Kiukozan Sobei, 230. 

IviNKWA-SAN or KlXKASAN, 251. 

Kill Nagura, 133, 173, 176, 211. 

Kipling, Kudyard, 367. 

Kiri, Too. 

Kiscru, 327. 

Kits It ne ken, 240-1. 

Kiyomidzu-ware or Kiyomizu-, 230. 

Knapp, Arthur May, quoted, 355, 

356. 
Kobe, 130-1, 182, 225. 
Kobo Daishi, 157, 168, 170, 175,192-3, 

262. 
Koetsu, Honami, 340. 
Kogai, 220. 
Kogo or Kobako, 327. 
Koi, 208. 
Kojiri, 220. 

KOIvAWA, 176. 

Kokiju, 233. 

KOMPIRA, 192. 

Koransha, 217. 

Korea, 159, 213, 222-3, 332, 338. 

Korin School, 341. 

Koro, 185. 

Kose-no-Kanaoka, 339. 

Koshi-obi, 289. 

Kotatsu, 188. 

Koto, 150, 234. 

KOTOHIRA or KOMPIKA, 192. 

KowLOON, 80-2, 84. 

KOYA-SAN, 172-3. 

Koyo-kwan, Tokyo, 295-8. 

Kozuka, 220. 

Krakatoa, 40. 

Kuge, 302. 

KuMA-GAWA Eapids, 215-16. 

KUMAMOTO, 216. 

KuNo-zAX, 241. 

Kura, 186. 

Kuruwa, 314. 

Kivairo, 327. 

Kwannon or Kwan-on, 160. 

Kwazoku, 302, 316. 

Kyomon, 263. 

Kyoto, 149-52, 155, 230. 

Kyushu, Island of, 200-23. 



Labour, 33-4, 51-3, 112, 334-6, 376, 

381, 408. 
Lacquer, 164, 255, 280, 283, 343-5. 
Lake Biwa Canal, 230. 
Lanai, Island of, 379. 
Language, Hawaiian, 372-3. 

" Japanese, 134-5, 333. 

Malay, 47-8, 63. 
Leis, 372. 

Lepers, 230, 300, 379. 
Letters of Introduction, 142. 
Literati in China, 93-4, 122. 
Los Angeles, California, 403-5. 
Loti, Pierre, 245, 329. 
Luau, 388. 
Luggage, 1, 2, 421-5. 

M 

Macao, 101-4. 

Mahan, Capt., 107. 

Maiko, 150, 240, 295-6. 

Makuzu-ware, 279. 

Malay Language, 47-8, 63. 

Manchus, 94, 115-17, 125. 

Manitou, 412-13. 

Manji, 162. 

Maple Leaf Club, 295-7. 

Marriages, 193, 315-18. 

Marseilles, 4. 

3Iarit, 250. 

Matahei or Matabei, 239, 340. 

Matale, 25. 

Mats, 156, 188. 

Matshushima, 255-6, 359. 

Matsumoto Eyozan, 280. 

Maui, Island of, 372, 375, 379-80. 

Mauna Kea, 379, 383. 

Ma UNA LoA, 379, 383. 

Meidji or Meiji^ 147. 

Mekake, 146-7, 316. 

Menuki, 220. 

Meshi-mori, 314-15. 

Metal- work, 162, 281, 344. 

i¥t, 219. 

Mino, 176. ' 

Mints, 92, 181. 

Missionaries in China, 118-125. 

" Japan, 153-5,311,365. 

" Hawaii, 377. 



432 



INDEX 



MiTSU-GA-HAMA, 195, 200. 

MiTADzu or MiTAZu, 227. 
MiYAJiMA, 194-5, 359. 

MiYAKONOJO, 209-10. 

Miyako-odori, 150. 

MiYANOSHITA, 244-6. 

Miyazaki-jinja, 208. 

MoGi, 129. 

Moji, 130, 221-2. 

MoLOKAi, Island of, 372, 379. 

Money, 33, 41-2, 68, 82, 114-15, 135- 

7, 346-7. 
Mosquitoes, 47, 365, 377. 
Mount Lavinia, Ceylon, 12, 14, 16. 
Moxa, 177. 
Mugiyu, 270. 
Music, 297-8, 372. 
Myoto-seki, 236. 

N 
Nagasaki, 126-9, 216-17. 
Nagoya, 240-1. 

Nagura, Kin, 133, 173, 176, 211. 
JSfaijin, 175. 
Namikawa, Y., 164. 
Naea, 166-7. 

Nareaiji, ruchumura, 227. 
Narita, 280. 
Naruto Channel, 191. 
Natane, 149. 
Navy, Chinese, 107-8. 

" Japanese, 251-2, 353-4. 
Netsuhe, 327. 
New York, 415-19. 
Nijo Palace, Kyoto, 152. 
NiKKo, 259-65. 
Ni-o, 161, 168, 263. 

NOBEOKA, 206-7. 

Norman, Henry, M.P., quoted, 317- 

18, 367. 
Nuka-fuJcuro, 196. 
Nunobiki-taki, Nobeoka, 206-7. 

" Kobe, 225. 

Nuuanu Pali, 373. 
NuwARA Eliya, 35-6. 

O 

Oahu, Island of, 369-76, 380. 
Obi, 221. 
Odawara, 246-7. 



Odori, 296. 

Ofuna, 278, 359. 

Ogata Korin, 340. 

Ogawa Eitsuo, 262. 

hayo, 135. 

OiTA, 205. 

Okayama, 224. 

Okyo School, 340-1. 

^ Oloha Oe," 388. 

Omi Lake, see Biwa Lake. 

Oniwayaki, 211-13. 

Onomichi, 194. 

Ono-no-Toru, 221. 

Opium, 34, 78, 102, 107. 

Osaka, 179-81. 

0-san-no-miya, Yokohama, 276. 

8ugi Tama, 232. 

Otsu, 228, 230. 



Pagoda, 180. 

Panama hats, 378. 

Papandajan, Volcano, 55. 

Paper, 243. 

Parliamentary franchise, 303. 

Patriotism, 321-2. 

Peery, Rev. R. B., quoted, 154-5, 355. 

Penang, 38. 

Peradeniya Gardens, 21. 

Petroleum, 258, 350. 

Philippine Islands, 107, 407. 

Photography, 424. 

PlDURUTALLAGALLA, 36. 

Pike's Peak, 412-13. 

Pilikia, 376. 

Piracy, 73-4, 86-7. 

Poh-tchi, 75. 

Poi, 374, 388. 

Pokunas, 27, 28. 

Police, 319-20, 326, 327. 

Politeness, 325-31, 337. 

Population, 16, 89, 101, 110, 371, 

377. 
Porcelain, 217-18, 230, 238, 279. 
Portland Cement, 237. 
Port Said, 8. 
Pratt, Spencer, 70. 
Prices in Japan, 336. 
Prisons, 96. 
Prostitution, 54, 70, 85, 98-100, 103, 



INDEX 



433 



118, 161, 190-1, 232-3, 310-16, 366, 
396. 
Punkahs, 8. 

E 

Raffles, Sir Stamford, 45, 51, 60-1. 

Railways, 19-21, 31-2, 34-5, 41, 57-8, 
109, 138-40, 149, 224-5, 249, 257, 
259-60, 271, 374, 380, 409, 411-12, 
414-15. 

Bamma, 152, 180. 

Rats, 171. 

Red Sea, 9. 

Religion in China, 119-21. 
»' Japan, 158-62. 

Bengeso, 170. 

Reno, Nevada, 411. 

Rest Houses, 23, 31, 66. 

Rice, 193, 236, 244. 

Roads, 25, 49, 64, 66, 82, 95, 205, 
207-8, 210, 211, 214, 226-7, 244, 
253-4, 257, 265-6, 270, 360-1, 381-2, 
396-7, 410. 

Rosen, Baron, 148. 

Russia and China, 123-5. 

Ryiigeji, Suruga, 241. 



Sada Yacco, 293. 

Sageo, 220. 

Saijoji, Hakoni District, 246. 

Sailors, Chinese, 105-6, 115. 

" Hawaiian, 381. 

" Japanese, 105, 252, 326. 
Sakai, 179. 
Sakaki, 234-5. 
Sake, 174, 254. 
Sakurai, 169. 
Samisen, 150. 
Sampans, 67, 110. 
Samshu, 99. 
Samurai, 302. 
San Francisco, 390-3, 407. 
San-kei, 194, 225, 256. 
Satsuma-ware, 212-13. 
Saya, 219. 
Sayonara, 135. 
Scenery, Japanese, 355-6. 
Schools, 155. 
Semi, 365. 

2r 



Sequoias, 401. 

Servants, 17-18, 69, 85, 114, 187, 314- 

15, 383. 
Sesshu, 340. 
Seto, 238. 
Shakujo, 246. 
Shameen or Shamien, 89. 
Shanghai, 109-26. 
Sheep, 300. 

Shiba Temples, Tokyo, 264, 282-3. 
Shibuyzi, 202. 

Shidzuoka or Shizuoka, 241. 
Shikine, 210-11. 

Shikoku, Island or, 183-93, 195-8. 
Shimonoseki, 130, 222, 
Shintoism, 158-9, 162-3. 
Shiogama, 256. 
SMta-ohi, 326. 
Shizoku, 302, 315-17. 
Shdji, 185, 360. 
Shojin-ryori, 173. 
Shoku dai, 232. 
ShUbun, 340. 
Silk, 91, 110, 131, 164, 221, 225-6, 

267-8. 

SiNDANGLAIJA, 50. 

Singapore, 39, 60-71. 

Skidmore, Miss, quoted, 198, 322, 
355, 359, 364. 

Soekaboemi, 58. 

Soldiers, Chinese, 113, 124. 

" Japanese, 124, 200-1, 202, 
326. 

Sonno joi, 147. 

SoRi, 267. 

Soroban, 133. 

Steamer travel, 1-3, 8, 13, 38-41,59, 
72-4, 78, 86, 104, 107, 125-6, 130-1, 
183, 194, 200, 205-6, 222, 228, 250-1, 
254-5, 368-9, 379, 385-6, 389-90, 
418-19. 

Still-births in Japan, 319. 

Stud Poker, 404. 

Suez Canal, 8. 

Sugar, 301, 375-6, 382. 

Suicides, 313, 319. 

Sumo, 288. 

Sunstroke, 9, 14. 

SuzuKAWA, 243-4. 

Swords, 219-20. 



434 



INDEX 



Tabi, 185. 

Tachi-bukuro, 220. 

Tachi-musubime, 220. 

Tahoe, Lake, 409-10. 

Tai, 211. 

Taiko, 150. 

Takuma School, 339. 

Tambies, 12. 

Tandjong Pkiok, 39, 41, 59. 

Tanoura, 211. 

Tasuki, 220. 

Tatami, 185. 

Tatsumono, 185. 

Tatsusiji, Tokushima, 191-2. 

Taya, Caves of, 278. 

Tea, 21, 33, 165-6. 

Ten Province Pass, 247-8. 

Tesshuji, Suruga, 241. 

Theatres in Japan, 288-94. 

"Three Views," Japan, 194, 235-6, 

256, 356-7. 
To, 180. 
ToBA, 236, 359. 

Tobacco, 4, 52-3, 84, 211, 332, 423. 
Tobacco-pipes, 78, 327. 
Toba S5jio, 339. 
ToDOEO, 206-7. 
ToKAiDd, 139, 149, 246. 
Toko, 185. 

Toko-no-ma, 162, 185. 
Tokushima, 183, 188, 190-1. 

TOKUYAMA, 222. 

Tokyo, 141-49, 280-3, 286. 

TOMIOKA, 188. 
TOMIYAMA, 256. 

Tomoye, 163. 

T5nomine, 171. 

Torii, 163. 

Tortoise-shell, 217. 

Tosa Mitsunobu, 340. 

Tosa School, 339-40. 

Touring, 420-5. 

Toys, 164. 

Travelling Expenses, 421. 

Trees, 129, 138, 141, 157, 168, 172, 
175-6, 179, 181, 188, 194, 229, 
239, 260, 265, 275, 361, 371, 382, 
401-2. 

Teuckee, California, 409. 



Tsuba, 219-20. 
Tsuka, 219. 
Tsunomine, 188. 
TsuRUGA, 228. 
Tsurugi, 219. 
Tsuzumi, 150. 
Typhoons, 80-1, 368. 

U 

tJcMko, 220. 

Ueno Museum, Tokyo, 345. 

Ueno Park, Tokyo, 281. 

Ukiyoe or Ukioye Matahei, 239, 340. 

Ukulele, 387. 

Unebi, 169. 

Uomi, Atami, 248. 

Uraga, 276. 

Urushi, 255. 

Utsunomiya, 259. 



Vehicles, 10, 14, 23, 24, 42, 82, 90, 
96-7, 113, 143, 177, 204, 209, 226, 
239, 247, 253, 361, 370, 396, 413. 

Victoria, Hong-Kong, 80. 

Volcanoes, 5, 40, 46, 55, 210, 258-9, 
272, 378-84. 

W 

Wada-no-Misaki, Hyogo, 182. 

Waikiki, 370. 

Waka-no-ura, Wakayama, 177-8, 359. 

Wakayama, 177-8. 

WakizasM, 220. 

Waraji, 184. 

Wataease-gawa, 266, 269. 

Water- spouts, 38. 

Women, Japanese, 197-8, 205, 276, 

310-20. 
Wrestling, 238-90. 



Yakushi-ji, Nikto, 168. 
Yamada, 232-5. 
Yamato Damashii, 147. 
Yamato School, 339. 
Yanagi-gori, 425. 
Yang-tsze-Kiang, 112. 
Yatate, 327. 
Yatsushiro-ware, 216. 



INDEX 



435 



Yezo, see Hokkaid5. 

Yogi, 187. 

Ydji, 324. 

Yokohama, 131, 136, 274, 278-9. 

yokosuka, 276. 

Yosai, Kikuchi, 340. 

YosEMiTE Valley, 396-402. 

YOSHIDA, 214. 
YOSHINO, 171. 

Yoshiwara, Tokyo, 190, 310-14. 



Tujoba, 314. 
Yukata, 187, 323. 
Ydmoto, 265-6. 

" Lake, 265-6. 
YuRA, 226. 
Yusen, 250. 



Za-buton, 186. 
Zashiki, 186. 



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the terms will become synonymous when the Trans-Isthmian Canal is made — 
this work is invaluable. As a collection of studies of the wondrously complex 
life of the Pacific it is no less admirable." — 7"/^^ Mor?ti?tg Post, London. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



DEC 16 iaU2 



